


Consigned to Oblivion

by Griddlebone



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Drama, F/M, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2018-05-13 02:05:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 58,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5690431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Griddlebone/pseuds/Griddlebone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fifty years after the death of its guardian, the Shikon no Tama reappears -- with dire consequences for those caught in its web.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My thanks to those who have supported and encouraged me in this endeavor.
> 
> Cover art for _Consigned to Oblivion_ was created by the incomparable SXM132 and can be found [at my Dreamwidth journal](http://eggplantlady.dreamwidth.org/36028.html).

Kohaku's training was coming along nicely. Sango sat in the shade, Kirara a familiar warmth across her lap, as her brother neatly executed a series of complicated exercises with his chain scythe. Soon, she guessed, he would be able to count himself among the village's warriors. As he turned to face her, a wide grin crossing his face at his success, she had never been more proud of him.

His expression sobered quickly as two of the village men approached the house. One of them was their father, the other an accomplished warrior named Isamu. Sango was surprised to see him; the last she knew he'd been out serving a tour as a messenger, gathering tales of youkai to bring back to the village. That he'd returned ahead of schedule did not bode well.

Kirara slipped away as Sango rose and went to meet the two men. Her father spared a small smile for her but she could tell by his demeanor that this conversation would be all business.

"I have a job for you, Sango," he told her.

She nodded, masking excitement with trained professionalism. Right now she was a warrior, not merely his daughter. Even so, it had been  a while since her last mission and she was eager for the chance to take on another challenge.

He left it to Isamu to give her the details: a nearby village, plagued by an enormous centipede unlike anything they had ever encountered before. The creature was causing a great deal of damage to the area around the village, and the villagers feared that they would be the next target. Isamu had just been passing through, but had thought this an excellent opportunity for Sango. As a specialist in close combat himself, he had not been keen to take on the creature himself. Sango, however, specialized in this sort of thing.

She hid a small smile as he finished his explanation. "Of course I'll go," she assured him, aware that her brother watched with envy in his eyes.

A flurry of activity followed as she obtained directions to the village from Isamu and set about gathering her things, armor and sword and the great bone boomerang that was her primary weapon, readying herself for the battle to come. She was on her way out of the village just a short while later, humming a jaunty tune to herself as she went.

 

She awoke in flames. Fire and magic and grave soil and bones wove a jarring cacophony, piercing the darkness — and Kikyou roused from the endless sleep of death.

Memories flowed like an incoming tide, bringing awareness in their wake. Fired clay fell away as she sat up and opened tired eyes. She was sitting within a kiln of some sort. She wore no clothing, but was untouched by the flames and the scorching heat. Her right hand gripped a spray of ash leaves.

Through the haze of smoke and flame she heard a voice. "You've awakened, Kikyou," it rasped. Blearily, she glimpsed a wizened old woman standing at the entrance to the kiln. Slowly reawakening spiritual powers told her this was no human woman, but something else. "It's said that when you lived, you were the one that protected the Shikon no Tama," the woman went on, voice grating.

Kikyou watched impassively as the hag grinned. "Now you will collect the pieces of the jewel for me!" the woman declared. "I, Urasue, command you: rise and fight!"

Of her own volition, Kikyou rose on unsteady legs and took faltering steps forward. She had no idea what sorcery had brought her here or what this body she now inhabited, for she knew it could not be her own, could do. All she knew for certain was this witch-hag meant to control her. Kikyou did not intend to give her the opportunity.

She laid her hands on the woman's shoulders, ignoring the screeching protest, and with a surge of power purified Urasue into oblivion.

Later, when the fog of death had receded from her mind, Kikyou found the garb of a priestess within Urasue's hut and dressed herself in it.

She had expected that death might retake her upon the witch's demise, but now that it had not, she must to return to the world. If what the witch had said was true, and the Shikon no Tama had indeed reappeared, then it was her duty to destroy it.

Exhausted, furious, filled with purpose, Kikyou made her way down the mountain.

 

Miroku did his best to give the impression that he was in no hurry as he left the village behind. It wouldn't do to arouse suspicion, not when he had so neatly swindled so many of that same village's men out of their hard earned money last night.

The tactic worked admirably; no one questioned his departure and by late morning it was obvious that no one was pursuing him. No doubt it would take them some time yet to figure out that the wandering monk wasn't just lucky when it came to games of chance, he'd been cheating. It didn't really matter. By then he would be long gone.

There were few other travelers on the road this time of year, which suited him just fine. He was accustomed to traveling on his own and in fact often preferred it. There was less need for pretense that way, and when he came upon a crossroads he could take whichever path he wanted.

It was late afternoon before he encountered anyone else, two men heading in the direction he had left behind. At first he paid them no mind, intending simply to go around them and be on his way. But as they passed the words of their conversation leaped out at him.

"They say it's no ordinary beast, but a youkai instead. They've hired a slayer to take care of it," one man told the other. This was not impressive in itself — Miroku had slain dozens of the creatures — but what came after caught his attention. "And I hear the slayer's a woman, and a pretty young thing at that."

His companion had a good laugh at that, but Miroku stopped walking and turned. "Excuse me, did you say there is a youkai in need of slaying?" he asked. When they answered in the affirmative, he went on, "Could you perhaps give me directions to the village? I would like to offer my services, as well."

This, of course, they did without question. Experience had long ago taught him that people were happy to trust a man dressed in the robes of a monk, and he was not above using this knowledge to his advantage.

And while he could not know for sure if there was any truth behind what the men had told him, there was an extra spring in his step as he continued on his way.

 

Life went on much the way it always had, considering there was a demon in the castle. The lord ruled over everyone and the lesser folk did their best to obey his every whim, and all of them pretended that the beast had truly fled this time.

They all knew it for a lie.

Each night without fail the creature returned, a spider of impossible size and implacable ferocity. Each night it attacked with webbed silk and clawed legs and potent venom. And each night, men died.

And with each day that followed, they pretended it was over this time.

Days ago they had sent for the slayers of youkai, for their foe could be nothing else but youkai, but the horrifying truth was no one knew where to find one. The messengers must first find one of the itinerant slayers and plead their case. Only then could they hope to receive the help they so desperately needed.

By then it might be too late, and so they pretended rather than face despair.

They did not realize that it was already too late.

Something else had already crept into their lives, sowing dark seeds of discord and malice among them.

For days he had watched. Watched and listened, nothing more. And then — like a spider he crawled through the cracks in their lives, slipping in to fill a void that had gone unseen to all eyes but his own.

No one noticed if their lord's son behaved any differently than he ever had. They were too busy worrying about battles and monsters, oblivious to the monster that was already among them, that pretended to be one of them. Deceiving them was a simple matter, though it galled one of his power to play the invalid.

For now he swallowed his resentment because he knew it was necessary and because it would not be long now until he got what he wanted. Then and only then could he grant these fools the fate they so richly deserved.

So he accepted that he could not act. Not now. Not yet. But soon.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My thanks to everyone who commented or left kudos for the first installment of this fic! As always, feedback is appreciated.

_How long has it been?_ The question was foremost in Kikyou's mind as she walked the path down the mountain and away from the witch's hut where she had been revived.

She had died. She knew that much. She _remembered_ dying. She even remembered, almost, the fire that had burned her body to ash. The fire that should also have consumed the Shikon jewel. But she had no idea how much time had passed since then or what had befallen the people — and things — she left behind. _How long?_

Now that Urasue was dead, she had no idea where she was or how many days or months or years had passed since her death, and would have no way of knowing any of these things until she could find other people and convince them that she was not a threat. The priestess' clothing that Urasue had unwillingly provided would work in her favor, but first she must find her way out of the mountains.

She should have waited to kill the witch, she knew, but she had been unable to stand the thought of spending another instant in that hateful creature's presence. Destroying Urasue had been momentarily gratifying, but it had not sated the burgeoning hatred and regret that roiled within her. The tumult of emotions that had consumed her in the moment of her death had returned along with the spark of life. Worse, now she had no one to answer her questions and no way to give vent to her frustrations. All she could do was keep walking. Walking, and wondering.

There had been no sandals with the clothing she had found in Urasue's hut, and the only path that led away from that hut was steep and uneven, littered with sharp-edged rocks and loose scree. Her feet should be torn and bleeding by now, but she felt only a slight discomfort with each stumble or misstep, more inconvenience than pain.

Was she, then, not fully reborn, not fully human? The thought was distant, nearly lost amid the storm of anger and hatred. In the end it didn't matter if she was human or not. It was just one more reason to hate.

She could not afford to look forward or back, could not think of the past and the wounds it had inflicted upon her heart, or the impossible vengeance that same heart demanded. Could not think of the future and what challenges it might hold. Not yet. Not now. For now she must concentrate only on the path laid out before her, and the hate that coursed through her very veins. There would be time, later, for the other things.

For now she had only to put one foot in front of the other and keep walking.

And yet: _how long has it been?_

Miroku arrived at the village to find no sign of the foretold slayer. If that slayer had ever been anything more than rumor, he thought ruefully. He supposed that he might have ended up at the wrong village, but he had followed the men's directions exactly. This should be the place. And yet he saw nothing out of the ordinary, and he certainly saw no beautiful woman ready to slay the demon.

At first glance, the village was like any other. It was a peaceful place, secluded, surrounded on all sides by forest without so much as a wall to separate civilization from the wilds. There was only one road into town, and one road out.

No one here was destitute, that much was obvious from the quality of the buildings and the clothing the people wore, but this was not a wealthy village. He watched the villagers for a while, wandering slowly down the single main street and taking note of his surroundings without attempting to draw attention to himself. Everyone seemed to be going about their daily business in spite of the odd pall that hung over the town. That strange, pervasive sensation told him that even though there would be little profit to be had here, the villagers might really be in need of a slayer's services. It wasn't a bad place, he decided at last. It just wasn't the sort of place he usually went out of his way to visit.

The village was small enough that it wasn't long before someone noticed him. As a stranger and a monk, he must surely stand out.

Predictably, the first one to notice him was a young woman. She couldn't have been older than fifteen or sixteen years old. Her face was plain, if earnest, until she noticed the newcomer and the spark of curiosity lit her eyes. She had been heading down the street on some errand, walking in the direction he had come from, but that duty was immediately forgotten in the face of burgeoning curiosity.

"Good afternoon, Houshi-sama," she greeted, her voice sweet in spite of the excessively formal tone. Perhaps he had misjudged this one. "What brings you to our village?"

The sound of her voice and the question she asked had already begun to draw attention from the other villagers nearby. Miroku paused to regard her, the rings on his staff jangling and sounding too loud to his ear in the sudden hush. "I had word that your village is having trouble with a youkai," he told her. That much, at least, was true. "I did not think to find a maiden of such beauty here," he went on.

By that point Miroku was aware of a group of several men heading in his direction. Word spread quickly in a town this size. Rather than propositioning the girl as he had intended, he affected his most affable demeanor, knowing that one of these men was likely the village headman.

He returned their greeting with a respectful bow and a repeat of the explanation he had given the girl just a few moments before. The men did not seem displeased to hear that he had come to put himself at their disposal in the matter of removing the troublesome youkai.

"We asked for a slayer," one of the men admitted, sounding a bit rueful, "But we don't know if they'll actually send one. We're just a small village. We might not be worth their time."

The other villagers murmured uneasily among themselves. It was as if they truly were not sure their problem merited the attention of a slayer. But in that case, why send for one in the first place?

"Tell me more about what's been happening here," he prodded.

Preferring not to speak of the beast where it might somehow overhear, the men escorted him in short order to the headman's home. The man who had done the talking up until this point was indeed the village head. The others clustered round while Miroku sat across from him in the main room of his spacious, but plain home and listened with apparent intentness as he explained what had been happening near the village lately. Silently, Miroku despaired at having to do this work with no hope of a decent reward.

Still, he was a monk. He supposed that from time to time he could do good deeds out of charity — more or less. But he had to wonder what this village hoped to offer a slayer in return for his or her services if there was nothing they might even offer a humble monk.

Knowing that this wondering about slayers did not matter, he redirected his attention to what the headman was telling him.

"You see, the centipede hasn't actually ventured into the village yet," the man was explaining. "But it's been causing a lot of trouble in this area, and we worry that it won't be long before we become its next target."

Miroku nodded. "Entirely understandable," he murmured.

"It lurks in the forest outside town," the man went on, encouraged by Miroku's obvious sympathy. "But it occasionally emerges and leaves destruction behind. It tore up one of our fields just before the messenger from the slayers came through town…" His tone was sober as he trailed off, leaving the rest to Miroku's imagination. The creature must be of enormous size to be responsible for the kind of destruction the man was describing. And since arable land was rare in hilly country like this, they could ill afford for even one field's crop to be destroyed.

"I will slay the beast," Miroku declared. "Show me where it was last seen."

He did not relish the idea of tangling with such a creature, much less the fleeting thought that it might take the power hidden in his right palm to finish the fight. But in the absence of the hoped-for slayer, he was well aware that there was no one else to help these people. He might as well be the one to save them.

Miroku and the other men had risen and were heading for the door when the young woman from before, evidently the headman's daughter, burst through the doorway. "Father!" she exclaimed breathlessly. "The slayer has arrived!"

Utterly forgotten, Miroku trailed along behind the headman and the sudden press of villagers trying to get a look at the youkai slayer. They had gathered at the very edge of town, perched between village and forest.

Peering past the throng, Miroku was surprised to see that the rumor had not been wrong: the slayer was indeed a woman, and an attractive one, at that. She was nothing like the imposing, muscled woman he had imagined. Instead, she appeared sweet and charming, entirely unprepossessing save for dark eyes that flashed with inner fire.

But first impressions could be deceiving. This woman, he realized, was not only a competent slayer of youkai, she enjoyed her job. At once he found himself intrigued. She wore entirely unremarkable traveling clothes such as any woman might wear. Surely she did not intend to fight in that outfit, he thought, although the sword at her hip and the enormous boomerang slung on a strap over her shoulder implied that she did.

"Ah, Lady Slayer," the headman said, pushing his way to the front of the crowd. Miroku hung back, waiting to see how this would play out and if his services would be needed after all.

The woman inclined her head slightly. "I came as soon as I heard you had need of us."

"Wonderful," the headman told her. He motioned toward Miroku, the crowd parting obediently to reveal him. "The good monk here just happened by a little while ago and has also offered his help. We shall be rid of the youkai at last!"

The woman nodded to the headman before letting her gaze fall on Miroku. With those piercing eyes fixed on him, he felt suddenly and irrationally self-conscious. She appraised him coolly, utterly indifferent, and did not need words at all to convey that she did not require whatever paltry assistance he might offer.

Oblivious to the way monk and slayer were sizing each other up, the headman carried on. "The youkai lurks in the forest outside town," he began to explain.

The slayer smiled sweetly. "Our messenger relayed all of the details that you gave him," she said, her voice as sweet as her smile. She went on, "If there is somewhere I can change clothes, we can get started."

"Of course, of course!" The headman waved over one of the village women, who led the slayer off. As tempted as he was to follow, Miroku remained where he was.

"Have you hired such a slayer in the past?" he inquired of the headman.

He looked surprised, as if he had all but forgotten Miroku's presence. "Yes," he replied, "but it was long ago. I was only a boy then." No useful information there.

"So this centipede youkai," Miroku mused. "It only appeared recently?"

"I wouldn't say that," the headman said after a thoughtful pause. "I've heard stories of such a beast living in the forest ever since I can remember, handed down from the time of my father's father, so I think it must have always been here. But it was never aggressive before."

Now that was interesting. Youkai were, Miroku knew, becoming more and more common everywhere as war, disease, and famine spread across the land. Such creatures were drawn to death and suffering, or so the stories said. This place seemed to know only peace and quiet. What could have caused a docile youkai to become suddenly violent? He gazed out into the forested wilderness, thoughtful.

It wasn't long before the slayer returned, and this time there could be no doubt that she was armed for battle. Miroku had tried to mask his curiosity before. He was incapable of making such an attempt now. The woman was clad in formfitting leather armor with protective pads over elbows, knees, shoulders, and middle. Silk sashes secured the padding in place, and thick leather boots protected her feet. Her long hair was pulled into a high tail to keep it out of her face during a fight, and a strange metal mask covered the lower half of her face. Her sword was still prominently at her side, and she carried the boomerang one-handed and hefted over one shoulder as if it were no burden at all.

Miroku had never seen anything like it before. And neither, apparently, had most of the villagers. Until that moment he had half wondered if such an ordinary seeming woman could really hope to kill a youkai. He no longer doubted. Not that the slayer noticed.

In fact, she was pointedly ignoring him. "Where was the centipede last seen?" she asked the headman.

"I can show you," he answered, sounding the slightest bit unnerved. Then again, he probably had no desire to encounter the beast himself.

Before he could say more — or lead her off without him — Miroku interjected. "Forgive me, Lady Slayer," he said, using the title the headman had used. "I have never encountered a professional demon slayer before, and I must inquire —" he stepped forward so that she had no choice but to acknowledge him and clasped her free hand in both of his "— are all such slayers as lovely as you?"

For an instant she fumed, infuriated by his presumption. But she was spared the necessity of responding, beyond jerking her hand free of his grip, when someone cried out. "It's coming! From the forest — it's coming!"

The slayer was already running, racing to intercept the youkai before it could reach the town. Miroku loped along after her, unwilling to be left out of the action entirely. He did not know if she would need his help, but he did not want to find himself too far away to help in the event that she did.

Miroku stumbled to a stop as the centipede burst from the trees. It was enormous and terrifyingly quick on its many legs, rushing toward the village with frightening speed. Small wonder the villagers were afraid to deal with this on their own. While Miroku paused, trying to determine if it was safe to use the kazaana's power to kill the beast, the slayer raced on.

Irritated that she was inadvertently preventing him from using the most convenient means to dispose of the youkai, Miroku hurried after her. Didn't she realize she was putting herself in harm's way? Of course she didn't. How could she?

She skidded to a halt, lowering the boomerang behind her as she did so. He didn't realize she was preparing to hurl the boomerang until she had let it fly — in a perfect arc that neatly sliced between two pieces of armored carapace to cut the youkai in half. Miroku stared, unabashed. To make such a shot from this distance, to kill such a creature in a single blow… This woman was unbelievably skilled. And remarkably unperturbed as the split halves of the youkai crashed to the ground.

She simply stayed where she was, reaching up to catch the boomerang on its return flight. Despite its size, she easily swung the massive weapon back into place over her shoulder. With that mask covering the lower half of her face, Miroku couldn't see her expression, but he had a feeling she was pleased with her performance.

The villagers kept their distance, awed that the slayer had dispatched the threat so easily, and on the very threshold of their home. While they were thus occupied, Miroku wandered over to have a look at what was left of the centipede. Painful experience told him that centipedes like this were difficult to kill, and it hardly seemed possible that she could have slain it so easily. But it did not so much as twitch when he drew near.

It was unusual for him to get to see a dead youkai up close like this. When he dispatched youkai, whether with holy sutras or the kazaana, there was usually nothing left. To his surprise, the slayer followed him rather than approaching the villagers. While Miroku investigated one half of the centipede, she began to inspect the other. She seemed to be looking for something, although he could not have said what. Until, that is, she began to tug the creature's legs off.

 _She's gathering supplies_ , he realized. He wondered now how much of that strange armor she wore was made from the parts of slain youkai. When she had selected the suitable legs, she moved on to the carapace. This she seemed to find less satisfactory, for she took only a few small pieces. She still wore her mask, so he could not see her expression, but he imagined a slight frown of full lips.

Leaving her to her work, he continued his circuit of the other half of the youkai. The creature's enormous size alone was discomfiting. As he rounded its head the sight of its huge mandibles made him glad he hadn't been the one to fight it. The centipede's jaws could have caused some serious damage.

Between those jaws, something glinted in the sunlight. Upon closer inspection, it was a lump of purplish crystal that had been wedged into the creature's mouth. It came free easily when he tugged on it. He held it up to the light, wondering aloud, 'Well, what have we here?"

The slayer rounded on him in an instant. He had not realized she was watching him until she abruptly snatched the stone from his hand, clasping it in a protective fist. "I was the one to slay the beast," she told him, her voice firm and indomitable despite the slight muffling from her mask. "The spoils of the fight belong to me."

He knew as well as she did that he had done nothing to earn a reward of any kind, but he tried anyway. 'Surely you are willing to part with something so trivial." If that bit of rock was what he thought it might be…

"Do you even know what this is?" she demanded, eyes flashing angrily. If she had hoped to render him uninterested, she had failed utterly. And she knew it. Grudgingly, she added, "I suppose you must if you're so determined to get your hands on it."

"It's a piece of the Shikon no Tama," he told her. "Or am I wrong?"

"You're right," she admitted. "Which means by rights it belongs to me no matter who killed the centipede."

He wasn't sure exactly how she was thus entitled to the Shikon no Tama, but let that question go for now. She opened one of the armored shoulder pads, revealing a hidden compartment into which she quickly tucked the gem. That armor was truly remarkable, though no more so than the woman wearing it.

By now, several of the villagers had gathered enough courage to approach. "Lady Slayer, the beast is dead?" one asked.

Another added, "What was that you had just now?"

"It's the reason this centipede went on a rampage," she told them. It did not escape Miroku's notice that she did not answer the question of what it was — or that she had never given her name. He began to understand why he had never heard of these demon slayers before, much less seen one. "Without it and with the centipede now dead, you shouldn't have any more trouble."

The villagers exchanged looks of abject relief and gratitude, clamoring to thank the woman for her services. She waved off their praise and their talk of rewards. "For now I'll just borrow your shed again, if you don't mind."

Miroku was tempted to follow. He had many questions and tantalizingly few answers. Aside from that stone, which might be part of the legendary Shikon no Tama, she seemed uninterested in any payment for her services. From the way the villagers were carrying on, they would have gladly given her anything as thanks, and yet she did not care the least bit. It was baffling. But then again, if that unprepossessing lump of stone was a genuine piece of the sacred jewel, then it was worth more than any other reward they might offer.

And if it was a genuine piece of that jewel, he needed to obtain it no matter the cost.

 

Once she was safely within the confines of the shed, Sango sighed. It had been an easy fight today, and the recovery of a piece of the Shikon no Tama was no small feat.

She stripped out of her armor and dressed quickly in her traveling clothes again. With her armor folded and ready to go back into her pack, she hesitated. Finally, almost reluctantly, she withdrew the crystal from its hiding place. Could this really be what she thought it was? Rumors of the Shikon no Tama had been trickling into the village for weeks now, but Sango had always felt that her father had the right of it: the jewel vanished years ago, and there was no reason for it to reappear now.

But what if it had?

She regarded the small stone in her palm and wondered. Her father had told her stories of the jewel ever since she was a child. Perfectly round, swirling with color, and surging with power. When she closed her eyes she could almost imagine that this jewel, which seemed like little more than an unusual pebble, tingled against her hand. Was there power here, or did she merely want there to be? This jewel was smooth, but not perfectly round, and was quite a bit smaller than she would have expected the Shikon no Tama to be. Perhaps it was only a part of the jewel, as the monk had suggested? She closed her hand over the stone.

She needed to take it back to the village as quickly as possible. Her father would know how to verify its authenticity. Which left only the question of what she ought to do here. She had resisted telling the villagers the truth of what she had found, simply because she did not want them to know how valuable or how dangerous it might be, but the monk had recognized it for what it was. And he had wanted it. She frowned.

She could not truly imagine a monk trying to rob her, but he had seemed very eager to claim this jewel for himself. In the end, she supposed, he knew she had it. The villagers could very well find out from him, so she might as well just tell them what she thought she had found. If this turned out to be only a part of the Shikon no Tama, it could be useful to let people know that her village was the jewel's birthplace and that it rightfully belonged there.

Feeling less resolute than she would have liked, Sango secured her traveling pack. She reattached the carry strap and slung the hiraikotsu over her shoulder, and then it was time to go out and face the villagers. And the monk.

She took one last look at the small jewel in her hand, uncertain whether she wanted it to truly be a piece of the Shikon no Tama or not, and stepped out of the shed and into the afternoon sunlight. A small cluster of village men was waiting for her, including the headman and that damned monk from before. Sango tried not to let her irritation show. Her behavior must reflect well on her village and her people.

The headman stepped forward. "About your reward," he began.

Happily distracted, for the moment at least, from her misgivings about that monk, Sango smiled. "This will be enough," she assured the headman, opening her hand to reveal the jewel. "Just the parts of the centipede that I set aside earlier, and this." She held up the jewel for all to see. They seemed more confused than impressed, all except the monk.

"Are you sure?" the headman asked. A buzz of confused and concerned murmurs was rippling through the gathered crowd, for the villagers did not want to be seen as slighting their protectors.

"This is a piece of the Shikon no Tama," she told them. From here, she hoped, the words she was about to say would be spread throughout this area, and news would make its way back to the village if more pieces of the jewel were found. And if it turned out not to be part of the Shikon jewel, well, no harm done. "It belongs with me. The Shikon no Tama originated in my village. Returning this to its proper place will be more than enough payment."

The villagers liked the sound of this, and seemed relieved not to have to pay more for her services than a few pieces of the beast that had threatened them until today, and the supposed piece of some legendary gem. These people were not wealthy and had little hope of paying for services like those Sango could provide. Any proposal that meant they did not have to part with any of their precious food or crafted goods was one they would agree to, and one they would not question.

"And remember," she told them as the group began to disperse, "don't be afraid to send for us if you have any more trouble."

Although the headman nodded enthusiastically, Sango knew the villagers would be glad to see the last of her. She didn't linger long, partly for that reason and partly because if she left now she would get home all the more quickly. As she gathered up the small pack of youkai parts, tucking the piece of the jewel inside for safekeeping, Sango had to admit she was pleased. It felt good to be on her way home with her mission so easily completed and such a potentially great prize in her possession.

There was a spring in her step as she left the town behind her; there was something about heading for home that always cheered her, and today was no exception.

The location of the village of the slayers was a closely guarded secret, more or less, so Sango noted with some concern that she had not exactly left town alone. She hadn't gone far yet and it was already obvious that the monk was following her. And he wasn't even trying to be sneaky. The rings on his staff rang almost merrily with each step he took, announcing his presence over and over. She walked a little faster, noting with irritation that the monk casually kept pace so that she would not escape his sight.

She went on a little bit further, past the first crossroads and the next, before slowing to let him catch up. He did not slow down in an effort to avoid confrontation or pretend he was following her out of simple coincidence. Instead he merely fell into step beside her as if they had been traveling together all along.

"What do you think you're doing, monk?" she asked, strained politeness crumbling in the face of exasperation.

"I thought I'd travel with you to your village," he told her serenely.

Sango frowned. "If you think I'm going to give you this piece of the Shikon jewel…"

"Not at all." He seemed entirely unperturbed by her tone. "But you mentioned that your village was where the jewel originated. As I am curious about its origins as much as its purported powers, I had hoped to journey to your village to find out more."

He didn't seem to be lying, but it was hard to tell. She wasn't entirely sure she wanted to lead him back to her village, much less that she wanted to spend the rest of her day traveling in his company, but she had a feeling he would follow her no matter what. She could refuse him, but he would only follow her anyway in secret. By traveling together, at least she could keep an eye on him.

"Fine," she said. "Follow me, then." She made no attempt to hide her irritation this time, but felt no regret for her inhospitable tone. This man was clearly a flattering smooth talker, and was probably a lecher and a conman, too, if his behavior back at the village was anything to go by. She sincerely doubted he was capable of dispatching that youkai as he had obviously claimed to the village headman, and she doubted even more that he was only interested in learning the history of the Shikon no Tama.

Rather than letting her take the lead, he kept pace beside her whether she sped up or slowed down, until she gave up and maintained a steady pace. He let the silence linger just long enough to irritate her, then said, "I didn't catch your name back there. Or is it just 'Lady Slayer'?"

"It's Sango," she bit out, wondering if his next step would be to praise her beauty again like he had done just before the centipede attacked. Did he really think flattery would get him what he wanted?

"I'm Miroku," he told her cheerfully, with a smile that suggested his charm usually worked perfectly well in getting him what he wanted. Somehow that made her even more disgusted to be traveling with him. If only she had thought to bring Kirara with her… But she had not, and now she was stuck with the monk. And now he was going to know how to find the village of the slayers.

A little while later, Sango found herself wondering if maybe she ought to blindfold him so that when the slayers sent him on his way, he wouldn't be able to find his way back. She was strangely certain that they would send him on his way, too, and hoped it would be sooner rather than later. Something about his reasons for following her just didn't add up.

Curiosity about the Shikon no Tama. Right. If he knew what the sacred jewel was, then he also knew what it was capable of. Of course he was curious. Of course he was interested. But why follow her all the way home? Why not just take the thing, or at least give her the chance to wipe that smug expression off his face?

Suddenly he chuckled.

She frowned. "What?"

"You're smiling," he told her.

The frown threatened to turn into a scowl. Just who did this guy think he was? She consciously smoothed her expression, refusing to let him get on her nerves. She had completed her mission quickly, and would be home yet tonight. The monk was just a small inconvenience, one her father would deal with as swiftly as Sango had dealt with the centipede. Thus decided, she decided that walking a little faster couldn't hurt.

"You don't waste time, do you?" he mused aloud. She wasn't sure if he expected an answer, and decided not to humor him.

Unfortunately, he was just as persistent as she was stubborn. "Looking forward to getting home?"

"Yes," she bit out, aware by now that he had contrived to inch closer and closer to her as they walked. It could be incidental that he was now nearly close enough to brush her hand with his, but she doubted it. She watched him carefully through narrowed eyes.

He was patient, she had to give him that much. But sure enough, not much further down the path, his hand sneaked toward her. She had pegged him for a pervert from the moment he made that stupid attempt to sweet-talk her in front of the village headman, but even she had to admire his boldness. To make such a blatant grab for her bottom…

Fortunately, she had plenty of experience dealing with men who didn't know how to keep their hands to themselves. She intercepted that hand — not the one, she noted, that was covered by a strange gauntlet and wrapped with a string of prayer beads, but the one he left uncovered — and glared at him as if to say, _nice try_.

The worst part was that he didn't even seem embarrassed at having been caught. He just chuckled slightly and tugged his arm free of her grip, as if the whole thing had been nothing more than a game.

Sango was grateful when the time finally came to leave the main path and follow the hidden trail that would eventually wind is way up into the hills where her village was located. A glance at the sky through the trees told her she wasn't making good time. It would be dark before she got home. Maybe the monk would trip and fall on the steep path ahead and break his neck.

She could only hope.

The hidden track that led to the village of the slayers was rough going, and for good reason. It was nothing Sango couldn't handle, having come this way over and over since even before she became a recognized taiji-ya, but it kept all but the most curious wanderers from stumbling upon the village by accident. And this left the slayers free to hone their craft in private. It might leave visitors a little breathless and tired, but it kept secrets safe.

It also kept the monk firmly focused on not tripping or falling in the fading light, rather than babbling at her or making another attempt to grope her bottom.

There was a flat place, about halfway between the turnoff point and the village, and she paused there to give him a break. She didn't like him one bit, but she wasn't going to be cruel just for the sake of it. He was winded, though not dangerously so, but he seized the chance to pause and catch his breath. If he was grateful for it, he did not say so. Instead, he asked, "How long do you train, in order to become a slayer?"

"Do you really think I can tell you that?" she asked without malice.

He shrugged. "What harm would it do?"

"The ways of my people are closely guarded secrets," she told him. Then, grudgingly, she took pity on him. Again. But they were close to home now and she could afford to be generous. "I was ten when I became a taiji-ya and began to join the others on raids." She smiled slightly in spite of herself. "But I won't tell you if that was older or younger than most."

He seemed pleased that she was willing to speak to him at all. "Did you carry _that_ —" he nodded toward the hiraikotsu "— when you were ten years old?"

This time her smile was genuine. She couldn't help it: her weapon was a point of personal pride. "Yes."

She'd had enough experience with outsiders to know what he was doing now: trying to imagine a ten year old child lifting a weapon the size of the hiraikotsu. Most outsiders could hardly believe a young woman could carry such a weapon at all, much less use it effectively in battle, but he had seen her in action and was fully aware of what she could do with it.

"You are an impressive woman, Sango," he told her. She sobered immediately. There was the presumptuous monk she remembered from earlier today. It rankled, that he had nearly managed to get past her guard. She vowed silently that it would not happen again. Oblivious to her angry thoughts, the monk went on, "Are all the women in your village fighters?"

"No," she said bluntly, although that wasn't strictly true. While everyone in the village, including the women, trained as warriors from a young age, Sango's decision to become a slayer instead of a wife made her stand out. Most women ultimately chose to become wives and mothers, serving as part of the village watch rather than becoming itinerant warriors. But every woman was given the choice to make. "And we should get going if we don't want to arrive too late tonight."

The monk yielded to her expertise and followed when she headed further down the trail. The going here was even rougher than before, which was why in ages long past someone had carved out that level spot to rest. The land sloped steeply uphill from here, and would remain steep and treacherous until they came to the plateau atop the hill where the village had been built.

Above, glimpsed fleetingly past the leaves of the overhanging trees, the sky shaded from blue to orange and scarlet and finally deep violet as the sun set. Sango ignored the passing of time and the growing ache in her belly, preferring to push on and eat when she was finally home again. She did not ask if the monk was hungry or if he wished to stop because, quite simply, there was nowhere to stop now until they reached the village.

Finally they came to the most familiar switchback in the path, and Sango smiled. The trees began to open up around them and at last they emerged into the full dark of night and onto the crest of the hill. This place had been stripped of trees long ago, and their trunks honed and fashioned into a thick defensive wall that circled the entire village, separating it from the forest all around. It must look imposing to an outsider, but to Sango it was blessedly familiar. That wall meant _home_ to her.

The large gate at this end of the village was open. In fact, it was never closed except in times when there was a threat to the village. And for the length of Sango's life, there had never been a need to close the gates.

Two women kept watch, however, calling out happily when they recognized Sango. She was too far away yet to identify them where they stood in the shadow of the wall, but she knew her friends Kasumi and Kaori had been assigned watch duty tonight. When they realized she wasn't alone, the two women shared a knowing look. Then one called out, "Finally found one you like, Sango?"

Sango immediately recognized the voice, confirming her guess as to the guards' identities. Trying furiously not to flush with embarrassment, and knowing she was going to be teased even more fiercely by her father and brother, she managed, "He was going to follow me anyway. Might as well keep an eye on him."

This earned a riot of laughs from the two women, who knew that Sango was telling the truth — and that as her friends and frequent training partners, they could get away with giving her a hard time.

"Come on," Sango growled to the monk, and very nearly hauled him inside.

 

Hitomi Kagewaki was, if not healthy, at least tolerably well connected. Very little went on in his father's castle of which he was unaware, and what news of the outside world came to the castle very soon reached his ears. And though his physical infirmities were a nuisance to the one who had assumed his place and identity and could not risk the questions raised by a sudden, miraculous recovery, his connections proved worth the bother. And besides, this confinement was only temporary.

Sooner or later, the time would come to rise up and claim his true place as lord and master of this castle. Even now, the servants and his few remaining friends among the castlefolk brought him news of his father's declining health. Some of them even whispered that there were times the lord did not seem himself, as if he might be going mad from the strain of unsuccessfully dealing with the castle's demon for so long. What would happen to them, they wondered, if the lord gave up the fight, if the demon could not be defeated?

Kagewaki only nodded his understanding and murmured the proper words of concern. What else could he do? He barely had the strength to rise from his bed. He could not hope to fight the creature that nightly threatened the safety of all who dwelt within the castle. Nor could he hope to make his father see reason and abandon their ancestral home. Or so it must seem. Now was not the time for the castlefolk to discover that the lord's illness was no illness at all, or that his son was no longer his son but something far more insidious.

No, they could not know yet.

He had waited this long. He would wait a while longer, and see what news he could gather. He had been too long alone, too long isolated from the world of humans and the world of demons, and now he must find out what he had missed. For rumors had reached him, and continued to reach him now that he had become Hitomi Kagewaki. Rumors that spoke of power beyond imagining, and a sacred jewel thought lost to the depths of time.

He had coveted that jewel once, and it had very nearly been his. But he had been thwarted in the end, and his heart burned with rage at the memory of the woman responsible for his failure. His only solace was that now the damnable woman was dead and gone these fifty years, and this time no one would stand between him and his goal. The jewel would be his, and with it his greatest wish.


	3. Chapter 3

After hours of walking, bare mountainside gave way to ancient forest. Kikyou scarcely noticed until she stepped into the shade of enormous, tangled trees and felt soft plant growth brush against her bare feet with each step. The path beneath her feet was still rocky and uneven, but there were patches of softer soil and moss. In other circumstances, she would have appreciated the gradual softening of the landscape. But in her fury, she could not appreciate the natural beauty around her.

Kikyou walked for some time beneath the thick canopy of trees, until the path at last turned over entirely to soil and moss and hardy grass that grew in the places where sunlight dappled down through the leaves. The way began to meander then, rather than making its way quite so steadily downhill as it had before. There was no sign as yet of a crossroad and there was no other path to take, so she followed the trail before her. She had no idea what she might find around each next turn, but there was no other choice. She hoped to find a village nearby, although that was more out of habit than due to a desire for rest.

Perhaps because she had been roused from the dead and her soul was now housed in a body of clay-become-flesh, Kikyou found that her body did not tire easily. Or perhaps it was the anger that surged within her that pushed her onward. Regardless of the reason, she felt as if she might walk for days and nights, never stopping for rest until she reached her goal.

If only she knew what, exactly, her goal was.

Ephemeral, compelling, it urged her ever onward, beckoning with answers to questions she had not yet thought to ask.

She felt something waiting up ahead and slowed her pace. The path looped around a thick stand of trees and brush up ahead, and she could not see past it. Anything might be lying in wait behind that convenient obstruction. And something _was_ waiting. She was certain of it. She could not explain the strange sensation any more than she had ever been able to explain her ability to purify the Shikon no Tama or destroy youkai, but she trusted it implicitly and prepared herself for danger as she rounded the bend in the path and came upon the last thing she had expected.

Unmoving, half hidden by bushes and the fading light of late afternoon, a girl crouched by the side of the path and watched with wary eyes.

Kikyou stopped walking. She did not allow her expression to betray surprise at the sudden appearance of another person in this empty place, but instead forced the semblance of a smile onto her face. "Don't be afraid," she said, and the sweet, gentle tone of her voice surprised her. "There is nothing to fear."

The girl's eyes widened, disbelieving. But in the end, she knew what that distinctive white-and-red clothing meant. She was very young to be out in the forest alone, but not too young to recognize a priestess when she saw one. "You're a miko," she said shyly.

Kikyou's heart ached at the sight of this child. It was a sweet and familiar ache, and for just a moment it chased away the torment of anguish and hate that roiled inside her. And then her emotions churned once more, and she had to wrest back control. "Yes," she agreed, kneeling to put herself on a level with the child. "I'm looking for a place I could stay for a while. Is there a place like that around here?"

The girl hesitated, glancing nervously over one shoulder, no doubt in the direction of home. Wherever this place was, Kikyou guessed that not many strangers wandered through. She could not even be sure that there might be a village nearby; this girl was the first sign of human habitation that she had seen since setting out from the witch's hut, and that had been quite some time ago now. Down this path, she might find not a prospering village but only a hut or two, a few people eking out a living among the harsh mountain foothills.

There might, after all, be nothing for her here. This was only the first time she had encountered another person since she reawakened in Urasue's kiln. It might mean nothing. But she very much wanted it to mean something.

"My name is Kikyou," she said, trying to put the child more at ease. Strange, how she had fought so hard to control her anger and pain through the endless hours of walking down the mountain, only to find that the mere presence of this child eased all her sorrows. What had been overwhelming was now nearly bearable. "What is your name?" Seeing that none of this had reassured this frightened child, and ignoring the pang of disappointment, Kikyou rose. "It's okay. You don't have to tell me."

"It's," the girl began, and then paused as if shocked by her own audacity. "It's Sayo!"

"Sayo," Kikyou mused. "A lovely name."

Sayo ducked her head, blushing.

"Won't you at least come out from the bushes?" Kikyou asked.

Still wary but no longer afraid, the girl stepped onto the path. To Kikyou's surprise, Sayo reached out and took her hand, grasping lightly and turning it this way and that. "You're really a miko," she decided at last.

"And what did you think I was?"

Sayo cast her gaze to the ground. "I thought you might be a youkai," she admitted. "Nobody ever comes through here, especially not a miko… and everybody says there's a witch that lives up in the mountains, and that if she ever caught me, she would eat me up!"

This time when Kikyou smiled, it was a genuine smile. "I lost my way in the mountains," she explained. "That's all."

Sayo seemed to find this immensely reassuring. She looked up at Kikyou, her eyes alight with excitement.

"And I believe I met your witch on my way here," Kikyou went on. "She'll trouble you no more."

This appeared to strike Sayo as more reassuring than everything else put together. Kikyou was relieved to see the wary expression replaced with one of awe. "Really?" she asked, breathless, wanting very much to believe that this strange wanderer might be a powerful hero.

Kikyou felt something tug at her heart. Anger, pain, the unrelenting need for knowledge — of where she was, how long it had been since she died, whether Urasue's whispers of the Shikon no Tama were true — these were the things she must face. As ever, there was no time for simple pleasures. And yet in the presence of this child, she could almost pretend there were.

What would it be like, to spend time with Sayo the way she had done with her own little sister? What would it feel like to teach another girl the secrets of herbcraft and healing, or archery? Would she feel pride? Would she feel joy? _Could_ she feel joy? This body that was hers but was neither truly human nor truly alive… what was it capable of? Almost, she wanted to find out.

Sayo had not let go of her hand. She only realized it when the child gave a tug. "Come on, Kikyou-sama," she said, filled with newfound determination. "I'll show you the way to my village!"

There was still only the one path winding its way through the forest, though it was somewhat obscured by overhanging trees, and there was much that Kikyou knew she should attend to, but she let Sayo lead her onward anyway. She could not wander aimlessly forever. She needed to find other people, needed to find out if Urasue had been right about the Shikon jewel. There was no reason not to start her search for answers with Sayo's village.

 

The village of the slayers was quiet as Sango led the monk past the gate and into the village proper. There were still a few people out and about despite the late hour, and many of these paused to congratulate Sango on her return and her successful hunt. Sango was glad of the acclaim, but she also wished that circumstances and sheer stubbornness had not forced her to bring the monk along, and thus to endure the knowing looks from the villagers.

She refused to dignify their teasing questions with a response, although if her companion had been anyone but this monk, perhaps she might have answered in kind. But she wanted nothing more than to get home and let her father deal with their guest, so she delayed only long enough to be polite — and not long enough for the monk to strike up a conversation with anyone. That, she was sure, would only lead to trouble.

It was full dark by the time she led the monk through the gate and into the small compound that was her family's home. Her father was no overlord to have his own palace overlooking his domain, but their abode was larger than those of the ordinary villagers and set slightly aside. It was peaceful and familiar. She took a deep breath, smelling the lingering scent of dinner, and hoped they had saved some for her. She had not even stopped to eat after slaying the centipede, and now was ravenously hungry. If not for the monk, she would have broken into a run, happily announcing her return. Instead, she opted for a more dignified approach.

"Father," she called. "Kohaku! I'm back! And —"

She cut off as Kirara bounded out the nearest door, chirping merrily and leaping into her waiting arms. "And Kirara," she amended, giggling as the cat nuzzled her cheek. "I missed you, too, my friend."

It didn't take long for Kirara to realize that Sango had not returned alone. She felt the cat grow tense in her arms before climbing over her shoulder and leaping the short distance to land, claws extended, against the monk's chest. His face betrayed a twinge of pain as tiny, needle sharp claws dug through his robes and Kirara climbed to his shoulder. Amused, Sango left him to deal with the cat and headed for where her father and brother had appeared in the doorway.

"I've returned," she told them. "I bring spoils from the fight and… him." She gestured to the monk who, distressingly, seemed to be getting along just fine with Kirara. The nekomata paced carefully around his shoulders but did not, as Sango had very nearly hoped, claw him in earnest. For his part, the monk seemed more amused than alarmed by Kirara's twin tails.

Her father gave her the same knowing look the other villagers had given her, but asked only, "Again?"

"It's a long story," she grumbled, feeling her cheeks flush at the memory of the occasions when smitten young men had followed her home in the hope of winning her over. "And it's not my fault!"

Her brother, at least, had the decency not to show his amusement quite so obviously. "Welcome back!" he said, and promptly disappeared into the house. With any luck, he would be making dinner for her and their guest. She thought she heard him laughing to himself as soon as he was out of sight, but chose to ignore it.

"I apologize for my imposition," the monk said smoothly. "But once I discovered that your daughter was from the very village where the Shikon no Tama originated, I felt obliged to accompany her. She had little choice in the matter."

Her father did not question the monk's version of the tale, but Sango knew he would want to hear the real story from her later on. Instead, he kindly invited the monk into his home. Sango followed with a sigh. Of course they could accommodate a guest. Their house was large and their family was small; there was plenty of room. She simply would have preferred that the monk spend the night under a different roof than her own. She might have brought him here, but she was not fool enough to trust him.

As she removed her sandals and stepped past her father into the main room of the house, she remembered the way that monk's hand had so casually reached for her, no doubt fully intending to… She bit down on anger at the thought. Later. Right now the monk, infuriating and presumptuous as he might be, was a guest in her father's home and she must treat him as such. Even if it killed her. Or made her want to kill _him_.

She used the excuse of returning the hiraikotsu and her armor to their proper places in order to avoid dealing with the monk immediately. When she was finally able to maintain an expression of calm politeness, she joined her father and the monk in the sitting area of the main room. She wasn't sure what the two men had discussed during her brief absence, but they both looked very serious until they noticed her return. She took a place beside her father at the low table, with the monk sitting across from both of them.

Delicious smells wafted through the air. Kohaku was indeed at the hearth, preparing dinner for the two latecomers. She knew better than to offer to help. She had just returned from a mission, and would be accorded honors for such even by her own brother. He was, she sometimes thought, entirely too proud of his big sister. As if she wouldn't feel the same way in the next month or two when he completed the last of his training and became a slayer in truth.

"Welcome back, Daughter," her father began. "I trust you had a good hunt?"

She nodded. "I was able to salvage many useful parts from the youkai. I'll take them to the villagers tomorrow." She took a deep breath. "And I found something else, besides."

"I can see that," her father said, chuckling good-naturedly.

Sango frowned. "Not him. Something else." She opened the small storage compartment tucked along the side of her left arm-guard and removed the small, shining stone she had hidden there. "I found this," she said, handing it over to her father. She watched the monk sidelong, noting the obvious desire that sparked in his eyes at the merest glimpse of the jewel.

Yes, that man might very well prove dangerous. And yet she also noticed that Kirara still perched happily on his shoulder. Kirara never took to anybody that was troublesome or dangerous, or who felt ill will toward any of the villagers. It was strange that she should like the monk so much after only just meeting him. Sango felt a twinge. _What do you see that I don't?_ she wondered.

Her father had not missed the look in the monk's eyes as he beheld the jewel, but he did not acknowledge it just yet. Instead he took the stone from Sango and looked it over thoroughly. Finally, he asked, "And what is it?"

"I believe it is a piece of the Shikon no Tama, Father."

They all had time to think about the implications of what she had said, for Kohaku chose that moment to serve dinner to Sango and the monk. Her brother had always had a remarkable sense of good timing, Sango thought as she dug happily into the bowl of leftovers. Even as she ate, she kept an eye on her father, hoping to see some sort of reaction as he inspected the stone she had given him.

"Very interesting, Sango," he said at last. Sango frowned into her food. She'd been hoping for something more conclusive than that, some indication that she ought truly to be proud of what she had found today, although she supposed with the monk watching so avidly her father might rightfully prefer to be cautious.

Ignoring the monk for now, her father set the stone aside and turned to his daughter. "Now, tell me about your hunt."

Sango set her bowl down, wanting nothing more than to finish her meal. But her father had asked, and she would not disappoint him. "Isamu was right," she began. "For me and hiraikotsu, it was an easy kill." From the corner of her eye, she could see that her father's expression was one of amusement and indulgence.

"I arrived at the village to find the monk offering his services to the villagers in the matter of slaying the youkai," she went on. "The beast attacked before I had a chance to speak with him." She couldn't mask a smile, and didn't need to. Not here. Not in her own home, with her father and brother. "An enormous centipede, one of the biggest I've seen. I felled it with one blow from the hiraikotsu." She sobered, smile slowly shifting into a frown. "From its remains… the monk found this stone."

She glanced to the monk, but he did not interject as she continued. "I guessed right away that it might be part of the Shikon jewel. And if that were true, I knew it must be returned to our village, so I claimed it as part of the spoils. I didn't realize it meant I'd be bringing him, too."

Her father chuckled. "This isn't the first time Sango has brought a guest home with her," he told the monk. "But it is the first time she's found something like this." He peered thoughtfully at the shining jewel.

Kohaku dropped down to sit beside the monk. "Is it really a piece of the Shikon no Tama?" he asked.

"That remains to be seen," Father told him. Sango nodded her agreement, though secretly she was positive that it really was a piece of the jewel. She wasn't entirely sure what that would mean for the village, but it sent a thrill of excitement through her. The jewel was an integral part of the village's history, an ancient and powerful relic that had been lost years upon years ago in the time of her grandfather. That she had found it again struck her as vitally important and perfectly natural. What worried her was that she had found only a piece of the jewel. What had befallen it that it was now in pieces? And what would happen if the other pieces remained scattered, as they must now be?

"We will present it to the elders tomorrow morning," Father decided. "They will help us determine if this truly is a piece of the jewel." He turned to Kohaku. "Please go now and inform the elders before it gets any later." Kohaku nodded and slipped away without a word.

"And what if it is really a piece of the jewel?" the monk asked.

Sango speared him with a look — she had _known_ this man was trouble from the moment she met him. But her father was unperturbed. And, indeed, the monk's voice had betrayed nothing but simple curiosity.

"If it is a piece of the Shikon jewel," Father answered placidly, "then we must decide what to do with —and about— it."

"The jewel must be returned to the village," Sango declared.

Her father cast an amused glance her way. "That is for the elders to decide, Sango."

Sango had heard the story a hundred times, but her father repeated it now for their visitor's benefit. "In the past, the elders have decided that the safest place for the jewel was not within our village. You know that it requires a person of unusual power to maintain the jewel's purity and keep its evil from spreading."

"Yes," Sango agreed. "But look at what happened the last time they did that. Grandfather took the jewel to the priestess, and when she died it disappeared. It's only just reappeared, and in pieces." To Sango, it seemed obvious that something terrible had befallen the priestess and the jewel she was supposed to protect, but her father did not seem bothered by the idea.

"That may be," he told her. "But it does not change the fact that we've no one within the village capable of purifying the jewel."

"How can you know that?" Sango asked. "The jewel hasn't been here in more than fifty years!"

Her father chuckled at her outrage, and she flushed with embarrassment at having become so animated in front of a stranger. "Call it a hunch."

"I still don't see why we couldn't bring a priestess here, where she could be protected," she grumbled, aware that the monk was watching her with newfound interest. "We never found out what happened to the other one, only that the jewel disappeared. If she had been brought to live here, maybe the jewel would never have been lost in the first place."

"Be sure to bring that up to the elders tomorrow, daughter," her father suggested.

Sango subsided, but she still felt as if he were teasing her. He'd already decided that this piece of the jewel was genuine, she realized, and he had also already decided what to do with it. What she couldn't figure out was what that decision might entail. He was buying time by insisting that they take the jewel to the village elders for assessment. But why?

Long years of experience told her it would do no good to ask. Her father would reveal his plans when he saw fit, and no sooner. Not even to the woman who was his eldest child and heir. So she changed the topic of discussion. "You seem awfully interested in the Shikon no Tama," she said to the monk. He nodded. "Most people think it's nothing but a legend, but you knew right away what this was, and when you couldn't keep it for yourself, you followed me here."

He heaved a put-upon sigh, as if her suspicions were completely unfounded. "I promise you, Lady Slayer, that you have misunderstood my intentions!" he protested, using the ridiculous title the villagers had bestowed upon her.

Sango looked to her father for help, but he gave her a look that said both _this is far too entertaining for me to intervene_ and _this is your problem, take care of it_. She would find no help from that quarter. Frustrated with her father's reaction to her plight, Sango turned once more to the monk. "Care to explain yourself?"

"It's getting late," he protested. "And it is a story perhaps better saved for morning."

"You may tell us now," Sango told him. She had to admit that she was looking forward to hearing whatever ridiculous explanation he was about to concoct.

"I've heard stories of the Shikon no Tama for my entire life," the monk began. "The jewel is a legend…" He smiled a charming smile that swayed Sango not a bit. "But I think you knew that already."

He was hedging, thinking, preparing to invent a story on the fly. Sango had suspected as much. Her father leaned forward, seeming interested. "Go on."

"They say the jewel is capable of granting the wish of whoever holds it," the monk went on. "And while I knew the jewel was a legend and might not truly exist, I always entertained some hope of using its power to grant my own wish."

Sango blinked. This was not at all the tale she had expected to hear. She could hardly believe he was being so open and honest about his selfish desire for the jewel. Did he really think to sway them with this story? She found herself asking, "And what wish is that, Houshi-sama?"

"To put an end to the curse that was placed upon my grandfather by an extremely powerful youkai many years ago. Upon his death, the curse was passed to my father. And after it claimed his life, too, it was passed to me." He held up his right hand, the one bound by a gauntlet and prayer beads, slowly closing the fingers into a fist. "When my grandfather was young, he fought many times with a powerful youkai called Naraku. At the end of each encounter, Naraku always managed to get away."

His expression had turned so serious that Sango wondered if he might be telling the truth after all. Unless this was a story he told often in order to gain sympathy…

"Until the very last time my grandfather ever saw him," the monk went on. "At that time, Naraku took on the form of a beautiful woman in order to get past my grandfather's defenses." He lowered his hand to rest atop the table, unclenching the fingers as if with great effort. "That time, before he vanished, he pierced my grandfather's hand and cursed him with the kazaana."

Sango's father sat back, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "An air rip," he mused aloud.

"Yes," the monk confirmed. "When unsealed, the kazaana pulls in everything —and everyone— that happens to be nearby. The curse grows stronger with each year that passes, in addition to being passed down from generation to generation. In order to be rid of it, I must find and destroy Naraku. If I do not…" He let his gaze drop to his cursed hand. "Then one day the curse will consume me as well, and be passed on to my children." He paused. "If, that is, I am ever lucky enough to find a woman willing to bear my children."

He glanced up at Sango through long lashes with a look that was such an obvious proposition that she had to marvel at his audacity. In front of her father, on the very day he had met her, without any idea whatsoever whether she was married or betrothed! And yet, if the story he had told them was true, she felt a pang of sympathy for him in spite of his outrageous behavior. She had seen no proof of the curse, but she couldn't help wondering. What would it be like to live as he did, with no family to support or help him, only a curse that he knew would kill him one day?

It was a disquieting thought, and she was glad this was not her challenge, but his. Looking at her father, remembering vividly the pain of losing her mother, she could not imagine life without him — or Kohaku.

"Tomorrow," she heard herself saying, "after the meeting of the village elders, I will take you to the cave where the jewel was created, and I will tell you everything I know about its history."

She wasn't sure what she intended to accomplish by sharing the history of the Shikon no Tama with this man. He was plainly not a good man. She didn't even particularly like him. But she wanted to help him in whatever small ways she could, even so. There was no chance that he would be allowed to use the jewel's power to put an end to his curse, but at least she could help him to understand why before sending him on his way.

To mask the uncomfortable mix of emotions she was feeling, she grabbed her bowl and dug back into the rest of her dinner. Her father, being the eminently sensible man that he was, asked for any news the monk might have from outside the village. They so seldom had visitors that it was worthwhile to ask even the least trustworthy guests for word of the outside world. And in the monk's case, Isamu's recent return meant that they already had a pretty good idea of what was going on, which in turn meant this was a fairly innocuous way to determine how trustworthy the monk might be.

It was an obvious tactic, but Sango approved. She half expected the monk to lie as blatantly as he had indicated his desire for a tryst with her earlier, yet from what she could tell he told only the truth.

Before she knew it, she found herself staring at her empty bowl and only half listening to the monk as he finished his tale. And still she was nowhere nearer to understanding that man or what he hoped to gain by remaining here. He had to know that they would not just hand over the Shikon jewel even after hearing his tale of woe. Did he plan to try to steal the jewel? Sango frowned.

"You seem tired, daughter," her father said suddenly.

Sango started, and realized she had stopped paying attention to the conversation around her. She'd been so caught up in wondering about the monk that she had forgotten everything else. Realizing that she was still frowning, she said, "I apologize, Father. It has been a long day."

"There's no need to trouble yourself staying up with us," he went on. "Your brother will return soon, and I can keep our guest entertained well enough on my own, I hope!" He chuckled. "Go and get some rest. You earned it, slaying that centipede."

"Of course, Father."

Before she could rise from her place beside him, her father leaned close. "You have a kind heart, daughter," he told her, and she understood it for the warning it was.

She gave a curt nod, repeating, "Of course, Father," as if he had given her some final directive for the evening, before rising and departing. She felt the monk's gaze on her as she walked the short distance from the main room to the chamber that was hers alone, and was glad to close the door behind her. How could a man at once be so frivolous and so intense? The thought gave her pause, and made her hope she wouldn't come to regret the offer she had made him.

 _I'll tell him about the jewel_ , she told herself, _and nothing else. And then I'll send him on his way, and good riddance. It isn't like I want to help him break that stupid, so-called curse or anything._

 

Long after Kohaku had returned and all three of his hosts had gone to sleep, Miroku sat outside on the veranda and listened to the quiet sounds of the village through the darkness around him. The slayer family had given one of their spacious guest rooms over to his use, but he preferred to sit outside and consider his current circumstances beneath the stars. He was long accustomed to spending nights in unfamiliar places, and equally accustomed to the sort of lonely desperation that kept sleep at bay.

He sat with his legs folded and his hands resting gently against his thighs. If he closed his eyes, anyone passing by might think him meditating — or asleep. He let his gaze drop, staring with unseeing eyes at his two hands, the one whole and ordinary, the other bound and protected against the deadly curse set into the palm. Surrounded by people and still utterly alone in this village of demon slayers, he wondered what he was doing here, really.

Choosing a path because he heard a rumor of a pretty girl was one thing. Following her home because she might have found a piece of a legend was something altogether different. It was dangerously close to hope.

He'd heard of the Shikon no Tama, of course. He'd heard of just about every miraculous power in the world, every relic and blessing that so much as whispered of the potential to end his family's curse. None had truly held the power that rumor claimed they did. Or, at least, none had been able to resolve his particular dilemma. But the Shikon no Tama with its promise of limitless power and the granting of wishes had always eluded him. He had assumed it didn't really exist. That something like that _couldn't_ really exist.

Yet if Sango and her father were right, it did. Tomorrow —today, now— Sango would take him up into the mountains to the cave where the jewel had been born. She had promised to share the legends with him: everything she knew about the jewel and its history.

If Sango and her father were right, the jewel could be the solution to his difficulties. There might be no need to waste the rest of his life searching pointlessly for Naraku.

If they were right, he ought to go into their home now that they were all sleeping, take the piece of the jewel that Sango had recovered, and vanish into the night before anyone realized he was gone. He could track down the rest of the pieces, if they existed, and use the jewel's wish-granting power to put an end to Naraku and rid himself of the kazaana. He would no longer have to live each day with the threat of death hanging over his head, knowing he was a danger to every person around him, knowing each day might be his last day alive and Naraku's final victory. He could live an ordinary life.

And yet he stayed where he was and watched the stars wheel slowly across the lightening sky. The sky was growing gray with false dawn when the little cat youkai crept out of the house and made herself at home in his lap. Miroku chuckled at her boldness, stroking a hand idly through her silken fur and earning a rumbled purr for his efforts. Both tails flicked slowly back and forth, the only sign that the cat wasn't simply napping. "What do you think, little one?" he asked. "Am I a fool for staying?"

She peered up at him, opening both red eyes. They glowed faintly in the darkness. He had never seen a cat with eyes like that before. But he was also not especially familiar with nekomata, so for all he knew this was perfectly ordinary. After a long moment of intense regard, she mewed softly and went back to her nap. He got the absurd impression that she approved of his choice to stay rather than pilfer the jewel. Exhaling a bemused sigh, Miroku remained where he was.

He was still sitting on the veranda long after the sun had risen and delicious smells had begun to waft from the house. Someone, it seemed, was cooking breakfast. He had to hand it to these slayers: in his admittedly limited experience, they really knew how to cook.

It wasn't long before Kohaku appeared, toting two bowls of rice and vegetables for the morning meal. Miroku had hoped that Sango would be the one to join him this morning, or else that the entire family would dine together, but kept his disappointment to himself. "Will you be going with your father and sister to see the elders this morning?" he asked.

Kohaku grimaced slightly, and Miroku knew without asking that he had not been given permission to attend, and that he resented being treated like a child. "The elders will be coming here," Kohaku informed him. "Our house is the only one with enough space for a big meeting like that."

Miroku nodded. Their home was relatively large compared to the others he had glimpsed last night, although he had by no means explored the entire village. "You will be joining them, then?"

Kohaku pouted. "Sango says I have training to do if I want to become a slayer like her," he admitted.

"That's what big sisters are for," Miroku told him amiably, though he had no experience with siblings, elder or otherwise.

"Don't remind me," Kohaku grumbled.

Seeing an opportunity to find out more about Sango's past without seeming to pry, Miroku asked, "Is your training so bad?"

This earned a small laugh from the boy. "It's not bad, it's just… some days I feel like it's all I do and all I'll ever do," he admitted. "It seems like they're never going to let me be a real slayer. And even when I do become a slayer, I still don't think I'll ever catch up to my sister!"

"Maybe not any time soon," Miroku agreed, careful to leave room for the boy to hope. "She does appear to have got several years' head start on you."

"And she never lets me forget it!" At least the conversation seemed to be brightening Kohaku's spirits. Sango was so confident and charismatic that it had surprised him to discover that her brother was comparatively quiet and contemplative, almost gloomy.

They ate in silence for several minutes, Kohaku stewing in his good-natured frustration with his sister, and Miroku waiting patiently. Finally, the boy said, "I'm so close to being a full slayer. But they haven't sent me on the mission to prove myself yet, so I can't officially be part of the meeting with the village elders. They let me join in for little things, but not for important business like this."

Miroku suspected that Kohaku had been given the relatively important business of keeping an eye on their visitor and making sure he didn't wander where he was neither wanted nor allowed. He kept that opinion to himself, however, not out of any particular sympathy for the boy, but rather out of simple expedience. If Kohaku didn't realize he was supposed to babysit Miroku, then he might be more lax in his watch.

"There's a test, then, before one may be considered a slayer?"

Kohaku's expression was glum when he nodded.

Miroku pressed his luck. "Are you allowed to divulge what the test entails? Your sister was quite secretive every time I ventured to ask even the simplest question…"

That earned him a laugh. "She wasn't very happy with you yesterday," Kohaku told him. "Father was pretty sure she wanted to throw you out until you told that story about the curse in your hand." He sobered. "Was it true? Are you really cursed?"

News traveled quickly through this household, it seemed. Miroku gestured with his bound hand. "I wouldn't bother with all this if there wasn't a curse," he said honestly. While the curse made for a good story and often, as was apparently the case with Sango, won him sympathy from those who would otherwise ignore or dislike him, it was no laughing matter. It was the one part of his life about which he usually told the truth.

The boy seemed duly impressed by the revelation. It was easy for others to find the curse impressive, rather than horrifying. Their lives were not at stake. Miroku had heard it all often enough that he no longer took it personally. "Would you like to hear the story yourself?"

Kohaku shook his head. "It's okay." He paused. "Unless you want to tell me!"

"I won't trouble you repeating it, then," Miroku decided. He fell silent when Kirara lifted her head and blinked her big red eyes open. She mewed plaintively just as Sango appeared in the doorway.

Sango, clad in the same fetching kosode she had worn yesterday, smiled briefly at the cat. For a moment Miroku allowed himself to imagine that the heartfelt smile was for him. Hers was no stunning beauty, but when she smiled she was utterly charming. That a woman could appear as sweetly innocent as Sango and yet kill youkai for a living only made her the more intriguing. Miroku's thoughts drifted toward a very pleasant fantasy of discovering whether or not this woman was as innocent as she looked.

And then she heartlessly shattered his lovely illusion. Without bestowing so much as a polite greeting upon him, Sango made her way past the veranda and down toward the gate, where the first of the morning's visitors had appeared.

While Kohaku gathered up the remains of their breakfast, Miroku watched Sango and sighed. What a disappointment, that this remarkable woman would likely be forever beyond his reach. He would have very much liked the opportunity to get much better acquainted with her.

As if he were fully aware of the monk's thoughts, Kohaku was smirking when he returned from cleaning up. "Come on," he said, his voice betraying amusement, as if Miroku were not the first visitor to be rendered completely besotted with his sister. "We'd better get out of the way."

 

"There's someone to see you, my lord," the man said without looking up. His voice betrayed nervousness bordering on fear.

Hitomi Kagewaki showed no outward reaction for a long time. Finally: "Show him in."

The servant had all but prostrated himself on the floor beside his lord's sickbed. He rose now and hurried from the darkened room, seeking the visitor that he should not have delayed in the first place.

Kagewaki waited with carefully concealed impatience while the servant was gone. He felt taut inside, tense with anticipation. His lips curled in a smile that vanished as quickly as it had appeared. At long last he heard the sound of footsteps in the hall beyond his room. Two sets of footsteps.

By the time the door opened and the servant stepped aside and bid the newcomer to enter, Kagewaki had managed to sit up, although he still lacked the strength to rise from his bed. "Leave us," he told the servant. He did not look toward the visitor until the servant had departed, closing the door behind him. Only then did he look to where the newcomer was standing.

The visitor stood silently just inside the door. His clothing and body were hidden beneath the pelt of a white baboon, his face covered by a mask in the shape of that same creature's face. Dark, empty holes gaped where the eyes should have been. "I am Naraku," the man said, but Kagewaki already knew that.

He knew, because this man was of his own creation. A part of him, carefully concealed, exulted. Outwardly, he must show no sign of recognition, but inwardly he could not deny that this was a great victory. To all appearances, this creature was a living, breathing man acting of his own volition and under his own power. Only Kagewaki knew the truth, that this Naraku was but a puppet, crafted of magic and human hair and other bits of power wrapped round a wooden core. That core was safely hidden here, among Kagewaki's things.

A puppet like this would be more useful to him than any human servant, for its loyalty was complete and assured.

"I had word that my lord's son was indisposed," Naraku went on, "and have come to offer what services I can."

"And what services might those be?" Kagewaki asked. Again, he knew what Naraku would say. The act was tiring, but necessary. In Hitomi Castle, one never knew who might be listening in. The castle folk, irritating as they were, must continue in their belief that he was their lord's son until he had gathered enough power to be rid of them.

"I am inconspicuous, my lord," Naraku told him. "I see and hear much in my wandering, and would be pleased to provide an account of all I have seen." Almost slyly, he added, "Since my lord is presently unable to venture forth to see for himself."

If he had not been responsible for the creature's existence, such insolence would have been intolerable. Kagewaki pretended not to notice. He waited in silence for several moments, as if deep in thought, before responding to the offer. "This could be a valuable opportunity," he mused, "for you can see that I cannot leave this place." He gave the puppet-man a sharp look. "What is it you ask in return for this service?"

"Only the opportunity to serve you, my lord," Naraku answered smoothly. Had this come from any other man, Kagewaki would have harbored grave doubts. But coming from the puppet Naraku, he knew it to be the simple truth.

Kagewaki smiled. "Tell me what you have seen."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one goes out to Molly, Gabby, and Lauren for their unerring enthusiasm about this endeavor, along with my thanks to everyone who has supported this fic so far by reading, commenting, or leaving kudos. Thank you so much!

Kikyou was no longer human. She had clung tenaciously to the fragile, furious hope that in rebirth she might have held onto some shred of her humanity, and with nightfall that hope had been dashed. The same body that seemed impervious to pain or fatigue also had no need for sleep.

The villagers had been shocked when Sayo led her out of the forest, but shock had quickly turned to gratitude when Kikyou told them of Urasue's death. She had altered the tale, of course. She did not know what had happened between her death and her awakening in Urasue's kiln, so she told them that she had lost her way in the mountains, whereupon the witch had captured her in order to perform some evil ritual. And she told them that, in freeing herself, she had killed her captor.

She might as well have told them anything, or nothing at all. The villagers cared nothing for the details she supplied. They were just glad to know the witch was gone, their terror ended.

There had been only a brief debate about whether or not she would be allowed to remain in the village. The villagers had given an empty hut over for her use and brought her food and fuel for dinner and a fire, but it was late by then and none of them stayed long. She was a priestess, after all. She was trustworthy. She would stay. She would keep them safe.

She had spent the night in her dark and empty hut, sleepless. Seething silently, burning with feelings she could fight but never conquer.

And not once, even when the sky grew grey and pale as the sun rose behind the mountains, did Kikyou feel the need for rest. Her mind was exhausted, but her body of fired-clay did not respond to human needs. A part of her wondered bitterly if the villagers realized yet that they had exchanged one monster for another. She should leave this place, she knew, once she had found out all she could from the villagers. Before they found out what she really was.

But with the dawn she rose and built a fire in her empty hearth. She could not stomach the thought of food, but she made a meal of what the villagers had so generously given her anyway. It was best for now if they believed everything was as it should be. She would find a way later to dispose of the food so they would think she had eaten it. This accomplished, she left the hut behind.

In the night the village had been obscured by darkness and the people who had crowded around her and swept her off to the hut at the end of the road that now belonged to her. In the light of day, she could see the village as it truly was. It was larger than she had expected. In this isolated and desolate place, she had thought to find perhaps a small cluster of huts or even a tiny hamlet, but there were more than a dozen houses built where the trees gave way to wide open meadows and terraced fields that burgeoned with green. A spring twisted around the village on one side, clear and cold and fresh from the mountains, its babbling a cheerful backdrop to the sounds of the village at the break of day. In the distance, the deeper green of trees closed in around misty fields once more.

This place might as well be hidden from the rest of the world. Somehow, this thought pleased her.

Many of the villagers were already up and about, and they cast curious glances in her direction when they saw her emerge from her hut. She hated them and pitied them and wanted to be one of them all at once. All she had ever wanted was to be an ordinary woman, and even now that was denied her.

She smiled as gently as she could, though the expression still felt far too sharp, and turned away from the clustered huts and the curious stares. She needed information from these people. And more than that, she needed something to trade for information.

Kikyou made her way past the village and the fields and into the trees, oblivious to the early morning beauty of her surroundings. Birds called and fell silent as she passed, and even the incessant sounds of insects faded away. They knew what the villagers did not: no mortal creature walked among them.

The swelling silence around her tore at Kikyou. She struggled to focus on her task instead of her impotent fury. Anger would do her no good, she told herself over and over. But the anger did not abate.

Herbcraft was something she could offer to the villagers in exchange for the information she so desperately needed. Her gifts of healing, if they remained to her, would make her invaluable to the villagers despite the oddities she knew she could not hide for long. Sooner or later, someone would notice how little their priestess ate, how seldom she slept, how she sensed things that other people could not. But these things would trouble them less, she hoped, if she was also the one that healed their injuries and tended to the sick.

Thus this foray into the forest. She would stick close to the village today, so the villagers could see her at work and know that she had not simply vanished into the night like a youkai might. Later, she could venture further afield.

She was pleased to find large clusters of medicinal herbs growing quite near to the village. It seemed that her initial guess had been correct and they did not have a healer of their own. She wondered if there was another, larger village nearby, and if they might send for a healer from that village, or if this village was small enough to simply get by without a true healer. With that question in mind, she gathered as much of the herbs as she dared to take and headed back to the village.

She would need supplies in order to properly dry and mix the herbs so that they could be used as medicine, and this would give her the chance for a first, crucial conversation with the villagers. As she crept back through the forest and onto the path that served as the village's main road, she wondered what it would be like if she stayed here. Urasue had whispered of the Shikon no Tama, and if those whispers had been more than mere rumor, then it was Kikyou's duty to seek out the jewel and destroy it as she had failed to do in her first life. She prayed that the jewel's return was only a rumor.

Sayo was waiting outside her hut when she returned. The child's eyes lit up when they fell on Kikyou. She hopped up from where she had been sitting, beaming as she asked, "You're going to stay?"

Kikyou smiled, aching inside. "For now," she said. "If the other villagers will allow it, I would like very much to stay."

Sayo's delighted smile tugged at Kikyou's heart. Did she have a heart? She was almost certain she did not. And yet the sensation persisted.

She brushed aside the feelings of longing, the desire to be mother and sister and friend to this sweet child, with the ease brought by years of practice. "Is there someone in the village who might have a basket to spare?" she asked. "There are a few other things I will need, as well…"

Sayo thought for a moment, then nodded earnestly. "I'm sure everyone will be happy to help you out!" she chirped. "Come on!"

Kikyou was not as sure, but she followed Sayo into the village anyway.

 

The slayers arrived first singly and then in small groups as the morning grew brighter. Sango met each one of them at the entrance to her family's small compound. As the eldest child and heir, not to mention the instigator of this meeting, it was her duty to greet them and apprise them of the situation at hand before sending them in to join her father.

Finally, the last pair arrived. There were fully twenty taijiya warriors in the village at this time, if Sango and her father were counted among them. The rest were out serving as itinerant messengers or on other missions and would not be part of today's meeting, but the twenty gathered today would be enough to reach a decision. Curiosity and impatience gnawed at Sango as she escorted the final two elders into the house and carefully closed the door behind them. Hopefully that small safeguard —and Kohaku's watchful presence— would be enough to keep their guest out of the way and out of trouble. The last thing she needed today was for the monk to cause a major disruption. Or a minor one, at that.

For now, she set aside her worries about the monk's bad behavior and took her place among the gathered warriors. As village headman, it fell to her father to inform the gathered elders of her finding and solicit their opinion on the matter. Although she was the one who had found the jewel, she was among the most junior of the warriors gathered today and her voice would be only one among many. As, she thought, it should be. She was confident in her finding and believed that she truly had found a piece of the missing jewel, but the strength of her conviction might stem only from the fact that it was her discovery and nothing more.

So she sat quietly as her father relayed the tale of her mission and its result, and forced herself to remain calm as he revealed the piece of smooth, faintly shining gemstone to the other warriors for inspection. It was imperative that the other slayers get their first chance to determine it to be genuine without any persuasion from her.

She hung back as the other slayers gathered around her father, each taking their turn to investigate the might-be jewel. The meeting room was large, big enough to hold every single slayer and then some, but today it seemed small and cramped, filled as it was with excited murmuring.

It wasn't long before Sango found Isamu standing beside her, looking thoughtful. "What do you think?" she asked him.

"I'm not sure," he admitted. "Although I have to admit that I'm a little disappointed I didn't take that mission for myself now."

Sango chuckled. "So you could claim the glory?"

"It would've certainly got Kasumi's attention," he said, adding a melancholy sigh for good measure.

Sango whapped him playfully on the arm. "She already agreed to marry you. What more do you want?"

He laughed. "She doesn't even miss me when I'm off on a journey! If I brought back something like that, I'd be a hero and maybe she'd actually notice when I'm gone!"

"If you want the glory, then you have to do the hard work," Sango told him, utterly unsympathetic to his plight — and completely ignoring the fact that it had been a quick and easy fight. Six years older than her and an accomplished slayer from a young age, Isamu had been Sango's idol growing up. She was glad that he had more than found his match in her friend Kasumi. And that he tolerated her teasing about it.

Both Sango and Isamu fell silent as Sango's father spoke to the group. "You have all had the opportunity to inspect the spoils that my daughter brought back from her last mission. What are your thoughts? Is this a piece of the Shikon no Tama?"

Sango had not felt this nervous since the day of the trial that confirmed her as a full taiji-ya and village elder. She had been only ten years old at that time, but she felt much the same way today. She was counted among the best warriors the village had to offer, but she was also one of the youngest present today, and was keenly feeling her relative lack of experience. If she had judged wrongly in front of the rest of the village elders…

Isamu gave her a reassuring glance, even though she already knew that he believed as she did.

"The Shikon no Tama vanished years ago." Takeshi, eldest of the taiji-ya and the oldest person present, was the first to speak. "Have we any reason to believe it was not destroyed? Beyond, of course," he went on with a cutting glance in Sango's direction, "the rumors that have persisted of late."

"We were never able to discover what became of the jewel," Isamu spoke up. "We don't know if it was destroyed or merely hidden."

"Or lost," Sango murmured.

"That may be," Takeshi countered, "but there's no one left in the village that ever saw the Shikon no Tama. How do we know if this is it?"

"It can't be the Shikon no Tama," Hoshiko pointed out. "All the stories say the Shikon jewel was perfectly round. And this, obviously, is not."

"And what if," Father cut in, "this is but a piece of the jewel, as Sango suspects?"

A thoughtful hush fell over the room. Sango looked to Isamu, but he was watching her father.

"What if," her father went on, "the jewel was not lost, but broken and scattered?"

Sango's heart pounded fiercely in her chest.

"If this is even a part of the jewel, it must be kept safe," Takeshi's younger brother Tetsuo pointed out. "Others will only try to gain its power for themselves and evil will overcome it."

Hoshiko gave a snorting laugh. "And it'll be safe here? Who here can free it from evil and keep it that way?" she demanded. She turned to Sango's father. "If this is a piece of the jewel, as you say, Iwao, then we need to find another person that can keep it safe, as we did in the past." She paused, frowning. "And we'll need to find the other pieces before they can be used to stir up trouble."

"That's if this is a piece of the Shikon no Tama," Takeshi reminded her. "And that's a very big if."

"What else could it be?" Sango asked, knowing she should leave it to the others to decide. "The centipede had embedded it in its carapace of its jaw. I've never seen a youkai do that before." All of the slayers had turned to regard her, so she carried on. "When was the last time any of you heard of a youkai doing that with any other object?" she asked. They all knew the answer as well as she did: it had been when her grandfather had first recovered the Shikon no Tama from a youkai and returned it to their village for the first time in generations. It was only later that the jewel had been given over to a priestess for purification and subsequently lost again.

Even then, she remembered, there had been doubters. Not everyone had believed that her grandfather had found the Shikon no Tama, the crystallized soul of their ancestor and the demons she had battled. Sango must now be as strong and convincing as her grandfather had been.

"This must be a piece of the Shikon jewel," she went on. "It can be nothing else."

Takeshi and Tetsuo both spoke at the same time, and the discussion went downhill from there, with everyone trying to get his or her opinion in at the same time.

Sango grimaced. "This is not how I hoped this would go," she moaned.

Isamu chuckled. "They'll come around. They wouldn't be this riled up if they didn't think you were on to something."

Sango nodded absently and hoped he was right. She kept an eye on her father while the others argued, marveling at his apparent tranquility. Then again, he wasn't the one who had found a strange stone and concluded that it must be part of the lost Shikon jewel, and therefore merited the immediate attention of every recognized taiji-ya in the village. His reputation was not at stake. Hers was.

Slowly, the furor began to die down. The elders had split themselves roughly into two factions, with one side feeling that Sango had made her case —or at least that it bore more thorough investigation— and the other believing that she had not. Only a few remained undecided. A quick tally told Sango that her supporters far outnumbered the doubters. She breathed a sigh of relief, but knew that now the true work would begin. The remaining pieces of the jewel, if they existed, must be found and protected. They must find a way to rejoin the broken pieces, and keep the jewel pure and safe. There was so much to do…

If Sango was certain of one thing, it was that the Shikon no Tama must not be lost again.

She stood stoically beside Isamu while her father announced the majority consensus. "I think we are in agreement, at least," he began, "that caution is necessary. If this is indeed what Sango —and many of you— believe it to be, then it must be kept out of enemy hands."

Hoshiko, ever practical, piped up to say, "And even if it's not a piece of the Shikon no Tama, better to have safeguarded it as if it were, than to risk losing the jewel to carelessness again." She shot a derisive look toward Sango's father, as if the jewel's loss were his fault because it was his father that had found and then lost it again all those years ago.

Father remained unperturbed. He was accustomed to Hoshiko's brash personality by now, after long years of clashing with her. "Exactly," he said with deceptive mildness. "Is this really a chance we can take?"

The other elders had little choice but to agree. From eldest to youngest, they eventually all acquiesced to the wisdom of protecting what might not truly be a relic out of legend… but might yet turn out to be exactly what Sango thought it was. They could agree, however grudgingly, that it was better to mistakenly guard a useless pebble than to fail to protect a powerful relic. Unfortunately, that agreement led only to more questions.

"If this is a part of the Shikon jewel," Isamu mused, just loud enough to be heard above the low murmur, "then where is the rest of it?"

Seiichi, Takeshi's son, countered, "That is why we must not act rashly. We must be certain this is a piece of the Shikon jewel before we devote too much time and effort to finding and protecting the pieces."

His thoughts following the same path as his son's, Takeshi added, "And what do we do with them once we have gathered them all?"

"Let's worry about that problem when we get to it," Hoshiko suggested. "We have a lot of questions to answer before we decide what to do with this thing in the long term. We ought to work on those, first."

Sango had to agree. "First we must see if other pieces can be found. Otherwise we'll only be acting on guesswork. If it isn't a piece of the Shikon no Tama, we shouldn't find any other pieces. And if it _is_ part of the Shikon no Tama, then we must obtain the other pieces before they fall into the wrong hands."

"And what are the wrong hands?" Seiichi demanded. "Is that something we should decide?"

"Yes," Sango insisted. "The jewel was born here. We know what it can do better than anyone else. And we know what it can do when used wrongly."

Seiichi was not convinced. "Myths. Stories."

"Whether it's just a story or not, if it's here, we know the jewel will not be used," Sango pointed out. "And if it's just a rock, what's the harm in keeping it here for a while to see what happens?"

Seiichi and his father both moved to speak up against her, but for or the first time all morning, her father interrupted to speak on his own behalf. "I suggest that we send word to the itinerants and messengers. See if they can turn up anything in their travels, and give them orders to return any unusual gems that they find to the village for inspection. But in the meantime, we safeguard this piece as if it were a piece of the Shikon no Tama." He glanced briefly to his daughter. "No sense taking chances."

"Easier said than done," Takeshi said dismissively. But he did not outright protest the idea this time.

"Not if we send Kohaku and Kirara," Sango suggested. "Kirara can cover a lot of ground quickly, and Kohaku can relay the message." Every slayer present knew what she did not say: that a mission of this nature would be excellent preparation for the test that would see him named a slayer in truth.

Maybe in the end, that was what swayed them. Or perhaps she and her father had simply made arguments that were compelling enough to convince the others. But by late morning they had come to a consensus. Kohaku and Kirara would be dispatched to deliver the message to the itinerant slayers, and in the meantime the piece of the Shikon no Tama would remain here at the village, where it could be kept relatively safe. It wasn't a resounding victory by any means, but it left Sango feeling refreshed and excited… until she remembered that she had promised to take the monk up the mountain to see Midoriko's cave.

 

While Sango went to greet the day's visitors, Miroku followed Kohaku's excellent suggestion and simply got out of the way. Annoyed at having her nap interrupted, Kirara shook herself and slipped into the house. Miroku made no attempt to follow. Sango had made it perfectly clear to Kohaku that this meeting was not their concern, and though Miroku was entirely too tempted to spy on the proceedings, Kohaku was every bit the good younger brother. And a good babysitter, too.

Kohaku did not wait until the last of the village elders had arrived, but left Miroku to sit and watch while Sango was still outside greeting each of the arriving warriors in turn. Unlike most of the villages and towns Miroku had visited, the status of elder did not seem to be conferred by age but by prowess in battle and accomplishment in the slaying of youkai.

Miroku found it odd that this village counted some relatively young people among its elders. He even got the impression that Sango herself was not merely the instigator of this meeting, but was accorded an equal status with each of the elders she greeted and escorted to the door. It made a sort of sense. She had passed the test to become a slayer. Perhaps that was also how one became a village elder.

He was even more surprised a little later to note that at least one of the other elders was a woman. She was taller than Sango and striking in appearance, with a sharp beauty that bordered on sly fierceness. Miroku's mouth ran dry just looking at her. He realized he was staring but made no attempt to look away. The slayer woman returned his gaze with a cool look, as if she couldn't quite decide if this leering stranger were a fool or she might actually be interested in him.

Sango glared at him as she led the other woman up the steps and into the house. The only thing that saved him from what was sure to be a withering condemnation was Kohaku's return. The boy was dressed in rougher clothes than the ones he had been wearing earlier, and carried a chain-scythe in one hand, the long chain hanging in a neat loop around his arm. He ignored Miroku, but cast a hopeful glance toward his sister, which Sango rewarded with a look of beaming approval. Kohaku sighed and got to work.

The main building of the house was surrounded at a short distance by a fence into which was set a gate. Although the fence was low enough to climb over, guests were admitted through the ornate gate, much as Miroku himself had been last night. Miroku hadn't paid much attention to this feature of the property until now, when Kohaku walked over and began setting a series of differently-sized logs on end atop the fence. Some were short and squat, others taller and thinner. Some he balanced precariously, poised to fall at the slightest breeze, but others he set firmly upright.

Miroku watched, more out of boredom than actual interest, until his attention was diverted by Sango's approach with what must be the last of the elders. The only clue that this was the case was the gate, which was now firmly closed. Without so much as a word to or about him, Sango and the two men disappeared into the house. Sango closed the main doors behind them with a depressing finality, and Miroku turned his attention back to Kohaku with a sigh. If he was absolutely not to be included in today's meeting, he might as well see he could get anything useful out of the boy.

Unfortunately, Kohaku was now well and truly absorbed in his training. Or perhaps that was fortunate, after all. Miroku watched, wondering if an opportunity to sneak away would present itself. He could probably learn just as much by wandering through the village as he would learn from Sango's brother.

With practiced ease, Kohaku hurled the chain-scythe in perfectly-prescribed sweeps and slashes. It was as if the weapon were an extension of his body. It was, Miroku noted, the same ease and perfection with which Sango wielded her boomerang. Yet this boy couldn't be older than eleven or twelve years.

Unabashed, Miroku stared. Just how young were these slayers when they began training? How many hours had Sango spent working with that boomerang before she could even lift it to begin training? A chain-scythe was one thing. Small. Lightweight. Manageable. Sango's boomerang was at least as tall as she was. Not for the first time he tried, and failed, to picture Sango at Kohaku's age. She had told him that she was ten years old when she became a taiji-ya and he did not doubt her. Only he could not quite believe her, either.

It seemed as if Kohaku whirled his chain-scythe at close range for ages. When he finally decided that he had practiced enough in this way, the chain suddenly lashed out to its full length - and the blade neatly sliced through the first of the logs. After that, Kohaku never stopped moving. He weaved and turned, whirling, almost dancing as he made his way slowly along the side of the house. The chain lashed out and pulled back, swirling with his every move, and with each lash it cut through one of the logs. Not once did Kohaku miss his mark, until at last there were no more intact logs left. Even the most precariously balanced stumps remained where Kohaku had positioned them, the wickedly sharp blade disturbing them not a bit.

"Very impressive," Miroku commented as Kohaku drew the chain back in with a sudden jerk, neatly catching the scythe by its handle on the return.

The boy blushed, suddenly awkward. "You think so?"

"You'll be challenging your sister for the title of best slayer in the family in no time," Miroku said, trying and failing to reassure him. Seeing that this had failed, he opted for a different approach. "How long have you been practicing with that thing?"

This, at least, seemed to distract him. "Since I was old enough to pick a weapon. I think I was… four or five years old? Maybe younger," he mused, as if not quite sure. It occurred to Miroku that training was such a part of life here that there might not be an official beginning to it. Children in this village might simply be born to it.

"Does everyone in the village pick a weapon?"

Kohaku came over and plopped down next to Miroku. The chain from his weapon formed a neat pile beside him almost by accident. "Everyone learns to fight," the boy said at last. "But not everyone picks a weapon in the way the slayers do."

Miroku must have looked well and truly confused, because the boy laughed. "I don't know how to explain it to an outsider!" When he had settled down, he went on, "Everyone trains so that they know how to defend themselves and the village if they have to. So they'll pick a weapon for that."

"But it's different for those who go on to become taiji-ya," Miroku murmured.

Kohaku nodded eagerly. "We feel drawn to a particular weapon," he told Miroku. "And we know right away that's what we want to do. Or at least, Sango and I did."

"So the two women guarding the gate last night," Miroku began.

"Kaori and Kasumi? They're trained fighters, so they take their turn at guard duty, but they aren't slayers like Sango and Father," Kohaku explained.

"Is it unusual for women to become slayers?"

Kohaku did not seem deceived by Miroku's line of questioning. That boy would be a force to reckon with in a year or two. "It's not common," he decided. "But it isn't unusual, either. It's just… being a slayer is hard. There's the training, but there's also a lot you have to learn. About weapons and potions and youkai, stuff like that. I guess most of the women just would rather have children or take care of the other work that needs to be done."

"Your village is self-sufficient, then?" Miroku probed. He wasn't sure how much he could get away with asking. Sango had made it perfectly clear that her people kept their secrets to themselves, but Kohaku seemed much more willing to talk.

"Sort of.  There isn't room to grow much of anything up here, so we trade for most of our food and for metal and stuff if we need it," Kohaku explained. "But for the most part people are happy to trade with us. We usually bring back something of value after each hunt." Miroku remembered how Sango had carefully gathered pieces of the fallen centipede, though he had been unable to tell the difference between the parts she chose and the ones she left behind, and could not imagine how centipede legs and shell could possibly have any value.

"Including youkai parts? What do you use those for?"

Kohaku frowned slightly. "You ask a lot of questions."

Miroku suspected that he really meant _Sango wouldn't like me telling you that._ So he told the boy, "I have been traveling for most of my life, but I have never before encountered a village like this one." He gave a self-deprecating smile. "I apologize if my curiosity is uncomfortable for you."

Kohaku shook his head. "I don't mind. It's just… Sango wouldn't like me to tell you too much. We don't even usually let outsiders know where our village is, much less tell them about our daily lives." He paused, looking past Miroku. "Besides, we have company."

Miroku turned, following the boy's gaze to the gate where two women, who might have been the two gate guards from last night, were standing and watching them. "It appears we do," he agreed. "Shall we invite them in?"

This earned a put-upon sigh from Kohaku, but he called to the women anyway. "Come on in."

Both women were about Sango's height, though the one was perhaps a finger or two taller than the other, and they looked enough alike to be sisters. When they had come through the gate and joined Miroku and Kohaku on the veranda, the boy introduced them as Kaori and her elder sister Kasumi. They were indeed the two women he had so briefly met the previous night, the very same ones that had teased Sango about bringing him with her. And, much as he was curious about life in their village, they were intensely curious about _him_.

"This isn't the first time Sango's brought someone back to the village," Kaori commented. She was shorter than her sister and had shorter hair as well, and a slightly deeper and very pleasant voice.

Kasumi grinned. "Was it love at first sight, or something else that convinced you to come home with her?" Her tone left little doubt that any previous tagalongs had been completely and hopelessly in love with Sango.

He chuckled. "I have to admit, I was most impressed by Sango's skills in battle," he told them. "But I was more curious about what she found after the fight."

The sisters shared a glance. "And what did she find?" Kasumi prompted.

Miroku shrugged. "That's what they're trying to decide right now. Sango thought it might be a piece of the Shikon no Tama."

Both women's eyes went wide. "But the jewel was lost ages ago," Kasumi protested. "Nobody's seen it in at least fifty years!"

"Until yesterday."

Kaori's expression was dark, her pretty mouth turned down in a slight frown, her brow furrowed. "And you followed her here because you thought she was right, didn't you?"

"Kaori, don't go accusing our guest of anything underhanded like that," Kasumi scolded.

"I didn't accuse him," Kaori sniffed. "I questioned him."

Miroku, having often been on the receiving end of both types of interrogation in the past, very much appreciated the distinction. "She was right to question me. I did follow Sango because of the jewel." He paused, drawing in a breath for dramatic effect. "You see, I bear a curse that has been handed down from my grandfather to my father when he died, and upon my father's death was passed to me. In a short time, it will kill me as well, and pass on to any children I may sire before that time. I had some small hope that the power of the Shikon jewel might rid me of the curse."

He had both of them now and he knew it. Kaori's frown deepened ever so slightly. Kasumi gave a knowing grin. "So you got Sango to take pity on you?" she asked.

"More or less," he agreed. "Although I didn't actually tell her about the curse until we got here," he added for good measure.

Kasumi crowed with laughter and nearly toppled against her sister in her mirth. "So you convinced her with nothing but charm? That's a new one!"

"Kasumi!"

"What? It's funny! Come on, you know it is."

She exhaled sharply and turned away so quickly that her hair, cropped to just shoulder length, whirled around her. "You shouldn't encourage him."

"Why? Because Sango's too focused on her work to worry about finding a man even after they keep following her home?"

Kaori turned back to glare at her sister. "Because _this one's_ obviously nothing but trouble!"

Miroku glanced to Kohaku, wondering what the boy made of all this. His silence betrayed nothing, but he looked to be just as bemused as Miroku. With perhaps a bit less confusion and a bit more amusement than the monk was feeling. After all, if these women were Sango's friends, Kohaku must be quite familiar with them and their quirks himself. He could probably guess what they were thinking, where Miroku didn't have a clue.

"You're only saying that because he's eloquent _and_ good looking," Kasumi teased. "And that story about the curse -"

"Which is absolutely true," he cut in.

"- makes him just about irresistible, doesn't it?"

Kaori's glare did not lessen one bit. Miroku thought she might pounce on her sister at any moment until Kohaku chuckled and rose from where he was sitting, and made his escape by saying, "I really should get back to my training." On his way back to restock the fence with logs for practice, he added, "And I think Sango would prefer if you kept him alive for now."

Kasumi seemed to find this much more entertaining than her sister did. "For now!" she agreed.

"Should I be worried for my safety?" Miroku asked mildly.

"No!" Kaori said, at the same time as her sister grinned wickedly and said, "Yes."

Kaori slumped, groaning. "Stop leering at him like that! He's up to no good and you know it."

"You don't know that."

"I do," she countered pointedly. Miroku was beginning to think it was for the best that these two had decided not to become youkai slayers. He could only imagine what they might be capable of, given the proper training.

"You're just overly suspicious," Kasumi accused.

"I am not!"

Miroku shrugged and intervened. "She has every reason to be suspicious." When both sisters look at him in surprise, he went on, "I followed your friend home and wouldn't leave until she agreed to tell me more about the Shikon no Tama. I do, in fact, hope to convince her to let me use its power to rid myself of my curse. I freely admit that my purpose here is entirely selfish, and have done nothing to convince anyone that I am anything but a complete scoundrel."

Kasumi was giggling in earnest by the end of this solemn recitation. "I say we keep him."

Her sister was not impressed. "Why are you flirting with him when you promised to marry Isamu?"

"When he's done with his years as an itinerant!" Kasumi tossed her hair, on the verge of outright laughter. "And in the meantime, I'm betrothed, not blind!"

Miroku was both surprised and pleased to find that the slayer women were much more forthcoming than Sango. Or at least, Kasumi was. Though he strongly suspected Sango would never forgive him for seducing one of her friends. And somehow that thought actually gave him pause. He needed her cooperation right now, or else he would have little hope of finding out more about the Shikon no Tama and none at all of using its power to end his curse. He had a feeling it would take little effort on Sango's part to see him thrown out of the village with orders never to return.

He couldn't afford for that to happen. Not yet. But once he had what he wanted… the idea of seducing a powerful and very willing woman like Kasumi held a definite appeal.

They were still conversing —much more amiably now— when Sango and the elders finally emerged from the house. The quiet of late morning was punctuated more by the rhythmic sound of Kohaku's chain scythe than by the quiet voices of the trio clustered together on the veranda. All three fell silent as Sango politely escorted all of the guests as far as the gate. When at last everyone was gone, she seemed almost to sag with relief until she spotted Miroku sitting with her friends.

"Sango, come join us!" Kasumi called cheerfully.

Miroku watched as she drew in a deep breath and considered refusing, then strode purposefully over anyway. "I hope you've all had a pleasant morning," she said and did not sit with them. She cut an imposing figure, looming over them like that.

"I didn't let the monk get into any trouble, if that's what you mean," Kohaku chimed in from somewhere behind Miroku.

Sango almost chuckled. "Kaori and Kasumi can take care of themselves," she declared.

"You wouldn't say that if you knew how much Kasumi and Miroku were flirting with each other," Kaori pointed out.

"The monk's incorrigible," Sango told them. "But for now he's our guest, so we have to put up with him." She sighed and let her arms, which had been crossed over her chest, fall to her sides. "Now: are you coming or not?"

Realizing that this last part was directed only at him, Miroku asked, "Coming?"

"I'd like to get back from the cave before nightfall."

He had been enjoying his conversation with Kaori and Kasumi so much that he'd all but forgotten Sango's promise. Hastening to his feet, he said, "Of course. We had best get going, then." As he followed Sango away from the group, he turned back to regretfully say, "I will miss the excellent company, however."

Kasumi giggled and waved him farewell. Kaori watched without humor. She was very protective of her friend, that one.

"Have fun at the cave!" Kasumi called after them. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do!"

Miroku noted with interest the way Sango's cheeks reddened at the suggestion. Was she perhaps more affected by his charms than she let on? The thought of leaving the sisters behind saddened him, even as he relished the thought of an afternoon spent alone with Sango. Perhaps this would be the opportunity he needed to get past those defenses of hers. He'd seen a glimpse of a kind heart last night, when she offered to take him to the cave in the first place, but she responded more coldly to all of his advances than he was used to.

"Should we perhaps eat something before we depart?" he suggested as they headed away from the house, thinking that it had been quite some time since breakfast and not particularly enjoying the thought of hiking uphill to a cave in the mountains on an empty stomach.

Sango gestured to the pack tied loosely around her shoulders. "I have everything we'll need."

"Ah, a picnic with a lovely woman, then? Delightful," he said as sweetly as possible.

"Don't get your hopes up."

He tried not to smile in the face of her apparent displeasure. "If you no longer wish to go with me, simply point the way and I will go myself," he told her when they reached the gate. "It isn't too late to change your mind."

She sighed. "And what would that tell you? All you would know is how to find the cave where the jewel was born."

He shrugged. "Or you could just tell me here, and save us both the trip."

She shook her head. "It's not the same. It's… better if you see."

 _Better if I see what?_ he wondered, but followed Sango in silence as she opened the gate and went out.

 

"I have witnessed strange occurrences," Naraku began. "Unexplainable events."

Hitomi Kagewaki felt his lips quirk into a smirk. "What sort of strange occurrences?" he prodded, knowing that Naraku would tell him nothing he had not heard already. And yet a part of him was excited: what would this puppet tell him?

"In a forest not far from here, there has dwelled a youkai from time out of memory," Naraku went on. "For as long as any could remember, the youkai lived quietly and left the nearby villages in peace. But recently, and without apparent cause, that has changed. The beast now attacks any who pass to close to its dwelling place, and the villagers fear that it may soon turn on them."

"And you have seen this, have you?" It was not a question.

"I did not dare stray into the youkai's lair, but I have seen proof of its recent activity."

Kagewaki briefly considered this. "And what do you think has caused this change in behavior?"

With that damned baboon mask covering his face, it was impossible to tell from his expression what Naraku might be thinking. Or not thinking. "I can think of only one explanation, my lord," Naraku said, his voice pitched low so as not to be overheard. "Surely you have heard the rumors… that the Shikon jewel has returned."

Kagewaki inclined his head in a slight nod. "I have heard these rumors. I believe them to be unfounded."

"This youkai was in possession of something very like the Shikon jewel," Naraku told him. "Its power —and its anger— has grown immensely greater in a very short time. And, although I saw only from a great distance, there was something shining upon the creature's forehead."

He paused, as if considering his story. As if he could truly think. "But I do not think it was the Shikon no Tama. Or, at least, not the entire jewel. If it were… surely the creature would have made use of its power to grant its master's greatest wish."

Not for the first time, Kagewaki wished for the strength to leave this wretched sickroom and go out into the world. _Not yet_ , he reminded himself. For now he must maintain the illusion and must remain hidden. Naraku had brought him valuable information, although he had already guessed much of it, and would bring more in the days to come. Until he knew more about the current situation in the wider world, he must bide his time here.

It was not just news of the Shikon no Tama's whereabouts that he hoped to obtain.

"I understand," he told Naraku at last. "Your report is appreciated."

Naraku bowed deeply. "Thank you, my lord. I am glad to have been of service."

"Go now. Return when you have more to tell me." Frowning, he added, "Or when you have something to show me." Perhaps the jewel itself, or one of the scattered pieces of it.

Naraku rose from his bow without another word and moved toward the door. As he departed, he turned back for a moment to say, in an offhanded way, "You may want to take care that your youkai does not come into possession of such a powerful object, as this other has. It may prove troublesome."

Kagewaki's expression betrayed nothing.


	5. Chapter 5

It was no easy walk up the mountain to the cave where legend said the priestess Midoriko had died and the Shikon no Tama had been born, but the trip was worth the effort. Sango could easily have asked Kirara to carry her and the monk to the cave, but she had not been thrilled at the prospect of even a short flight with that man. It was no stretch to imagine him using it as an excuse to press himself suggestively against her, whispering innuendo in her ear, and she found herself almost waiting for him to make a move, if only to give her an excuse to retaliate.

She hoped it would do him good to expend a little effort in learning the history of the relic he so desired.

They made the journey more or less in silence, though not for lack of trying on the monk's part. He tried several times to engage her in conversation, but eventually subsided when he realized he would get no more than terse replies out of her. Even when they stopped to eat the small meal she had brought for them, she stubbornly refused to rise to the bait. His determination to win her over only made her more suspicious of his intentions and more eager to send him on his way. With any luck, this trip to the cave would do the trick… if she could put up with him long enough.

Failing that… Sango glanced over her shoulder as he huffed up the last few steps to the mouth of the cave, and was not sure what she would do. Even if she convinced him to leave the village of the slayers after this, she had the unpleasant feeling that this would not be the last she saw of him.

"This is the place?" he asked, sounding less winded than she had expected.

"Yes," she told him. It did not look like the sort of place where one would find a large cave, this narrow ledge on the side of a mountain where thick bushes clustered and the path disappeared. Sango herself had not believed there could be anything here, the first time her father brought her. She had been only a child, then. Now she had become the guide.

She led him past the curtain of greenery and into momentary darkness. The monk followed cautiously, suddenly nervous now that they had reached their destination and the time had come for her to keep the promise she had made. It surprised her a little to see him so tentative.

The cave was dark and narrow as it meandered into the mountain. Even Sango felt closed in and nervous, and she knew what lay ahead.

Finally the monk could take it no longer and asked, "Should we have brought torches?"

"No," said Sango, and she rounded the curve and stepped into the light. She listened to the monk following, noting when he stopped to stare in awe at that which was hidden within the cave. Sango let him look in silence; even after all these years, the sight still engrossed her. A long time ago, parts of the ceiling had collapsed, allowing daylight to stream into the gloom. Thin beams of sunlight illuminated the cavern with strands of eerie, bluish light.

The cavern was dominated by an ungainly formation of stone that twisted and bulged from floor to ceiling. At first glance it seemed like nothing more than an ugly, but natural feature of the cave.

It was also a mummy, the petrified remains of the priestess and the youkai that had killed her, but this was not immediately obvious from where Sango and the monk stood near the entry passage. Sango edged further into the cavern and said nothing, letting the monk take his time as he took in the sight before him.

From her new vantage point, the eerie figure came into view and became recognizable as the form of a woman and… something else. The massed youkai, which still seemed to roil and seethe despite being dead and long since turned to stone, were like nothing she had ever seen before. Sango always felt an inexplicable draw when she came to this place, a deep and enduring curiosity about the woman who had died here and the powerful relic that had been birthed in the aftermath. Even so, the sight sent shivers down her spine. This cavern was both a tomb and a memorial to a powerful woman who had lived long ago, but it was also a warning: no matter how skilled the warrior, no matter how much they knew about youkai, there were always dangers.

"What do you know about the jewel's creation?" she asked as the monk finally came to join her and beheld the cavern's secret for the first time.

"I know nothing," he said, and there was a slight tinge of appreciation to his voice. "Only that it holds powerful magic, or is said to."

She noticed the way the fingers of his right hand, the bound and cursed hand, seemed to tighten of their own accord to form a loose fist, but did not mention it. Instead she took a few steps forward, putting herself well out of his reach. "It was created here," she told him. She kept her voice quiet and somber, as respectful as possible, but still it echoed loudly and ominously through the cavern. "The stories say over a hundred youkai are mummified here."

The monk stepped closer to the stone, glancing to her as if seeking permission. She nodded, knowing what he would find. Each strange lump turned out to be a skull or a twisted youkai limb, all piled up against the woman's body as if they had been trying to kill her — or consume her. There was no telling, now, which it had been.

"And they gathered here…" the monk trailed off as his eyes found and recognized the armored figure among the youkai. "…For that," he finished. He looked for a moment, then ventured, "A general?"

"No," Sango said. "Long ago, this woman was a priestess, and the youkai came here to destroy her."

"She must have had great power, to be targeted like this," the monk observed.

Sango could almost like the somber, thoughtful man that he was right now. "She was called Midoriko, and she was a fiercer enemy to youkai than any samurai or monk. It is said that she could kill ten youkai with a single strike," she explained. "She used a technique that drove out the souls and purified them."

"Ah, so that is why," the monk murmured.

Sango glanced at him sidelong, wondering just how much he had understood from so little explanation. "I had wondered why it was called 'shikon'," he told her, catching the knowing glance. "But I think I begin to understand. It wasn't just the souls of youkai that she could exorcise, was it?"

"No," Sango agreed, pleased in some small way at how quick a study he was. "It was any of the four souls. Or all of them, as she desired."

"It's easy to see why youkai would come to fear her. With such power, she would have been truly formidable."

"Yes."

The monk fell silent, inspecting the mummified mass again in light of this new knowledge and taking special note of the hole that gaped where the priestess's heart would have been. "So how did this happen? Couldn't she just have destroyed the demons?"

"She could, and did," Sango told him. "Eventually the youkai learned that an immense power would be required, a soul far stronger than hers and evil enough to withstand her powers of purification. The youkai that attacked her here were beyond counting, and they used their power as one."

She had not really answered his question, and they both knew it. "As for how they managed this…" She gestured toward a darkened corner of the cave where no sunlight seemed to fall. The villagers seldom visited this part of the cavern, and Sango was no exception. Midoriko's death scene was unnerving enough on its own.

She braced herself as the monk came to stand next to her, peering into the gloom, but he made no attempt to touch her inappropriately. He seemed entirely intent on learning everything he could. "Another human," he observed. Indeed, Midoriko had not been the only human to die in this cave. The other had been entombed here, doomed always to be separated from the woman who had been his obsession in life. Some of the villagers thought it a tragic story; Sango found it horrifying.

"This man loved Midoriko in life," she explained. "But his love became a dark and twisted thing, and the youkai were able to prey upon it. They overwhelmed him and possessed him."

"And he became the conduit for their power, their weapon against the woman he loved so much," the monk surmised.

"Yes." Sango sighed. "Using a weak human is often the easiest way for youkai to combine their power." She closed her eyes, remembering not quite fondly. "When the children from the village are old enough, they are brought here and told the story. We learn the signs of such possession and the dangers of allowing powerful youkai to conspire without challenge. A part of what we do is intended to stop something like this from happening again."

The monk considered this for a long time. She wondered what he was thinking about, but did not ask. She did not want him to lie to her.

Finally, he asked, "What happened once the youkai possessed the man?" He gave a small, self-deprecating laugh and gestured toward the mummy. "Aside from the obvious."

"For seven days and seven nights, the youkai fought against Midoriko," Sango told him, as she had told so many of the children from her village over the years. "Until at last even her power was exhausted. The youkai consumed her body and absorbed her soul into their own." She always found this part of the story difficult to tell. "But they miscalculated. She used the last of her power to expel the souls of the youkai. They died here, together, and the Shikon no Tama was born from what remained. The clustered souls…"

She trailed off into silence that hung heavy in the close atmosphere of the cave. Even the sunlight streaming in could not fully seem to illuminate the darkness.

"It is said that the two souls continue to fight within the jewel even today, Midoriko against the youkai," she said at last.

"And because of its nature, the jewel can thus be turned from good to evil or the reverse," the monk observed. "This is, I assume, why even a small piece of the jewel must be kept in your village and closely guarded."

Sango nodded. "In the wrong hands, the jewel's power will turn to evil and it will begin to corrupt everything around it. Youkai will be drawn to it. There will be intense violence. It has happened before, in the time of my grandfather. The jewel was found and returned to the village, but it was badly corrupted by then. When it was entrusted to a priestess for purification, it was lost once more. We slayers are, more than anyone else, equipped to protect it and prevent it from being corrupted again." Her father might have been right when he said that no one in the village had the power to purify the jewel and maintain its neutrality, but at least they were capable of keeping it safe from youkai. It would not be lost again, so long as it stayed here.

"But in the right hands," the monk mused, "surely the jewel's power can be used for good."

This was not unexpected. In fact, she had been waiting for it ever since she offered to bring him here and tell him the story. And she was ready with an answer. "The jewel always bears the taint of its youkai half, even when it appears to be purified," she explained gently, perhaps more gently than this man deserved. "No matter the intentions of the person using it, their wishes will always be twisted and changed, and there will be unintended consequences." She could not know, of course, if this was true or just a legend, but on this point all of the stories agreed: the jewel's power was treacherous. She caught his gaze with hers and said, "We cannot allow you to use the jewel even if it would rid you of your curse."

There was no deception  in his eyes, at least not that she could see, but he looked away first. She let him have the silence. It was the least she could do. Finally, he asked, "What will happen if you cannot find someone in the village who can purify the jewel?"

Sango knew only as much as the family stories had passed down, but that was enough to venture a guess. "Once, the jewel was given to a powerful priestess in a village far away," she told him. "Her power was enough to keep the jewel purified at all times. I would imagine that if no one with such power can be found here, we would again go in search of such a person."

"Might I try --" he began.

"No."

He heaved a put-upon sigh, but did not argue. "In that case, I suppose it is time we headed back to the village," he decided. "Unless there is something else here that you wish to show me?"

"This cave goes very far back into the mountain," Sango told him, "but the mummy is the only thing worth seeing."

He followed as she led the way back to the path down the mountain, for once blessedly quiet. Sango remained alert for any untoward behavior, but the monk seemed deeply affected by what he had seen in the cave — or at least he seemed more contemplative than usual. If only she could trust that this was truly the case. Instead she quietly kept an eye on him all the way back to the village.

It wasn't until they had passed through the gate and into her family's compound that the monk spoke again. "What will happen now?" he asked.

Sango steeled herself. "In a day, or perhaps two, you will be escorted from this village," she told him, keeping her voice level lest she give him some false hope. She felt almost guilty, knowing as she did the terrible curse that haunted this man, and knowing that she was perhaps sentencing him to death. "And after that, what happens to the Shikon no Tama will be none of your concern."

She tried not to notice the grave expression on his face as he followed her into the house.

As she left him at the door to the guest room Father had given over to his use, she thought that if things were different, perhaps she would have offered to go with him when he left the village, to help him hunt down and slay the demon that had cursed him. If things were different… but for now she had to find out what Kaori and Kasumi had learned from their visitor today.

 

When she first emerged from Urasue's kiln, Kikyou had been filled to the brim with anger and hatred. Her blood had seethed within her veins — clay made flesh by the witch's powerful magic, revived exactly as she had been at the moment of her death. Happiness had not existed within her, only pain and anger and sorrow. She had felt certain she would never experience even a fleeting moment of happiness again.

And why should she? She, who had been revived for one purpose and one purpose alone: to seek the scattered pieces of the Shikon no Tama for her erstwhile master. Kikyou's happiness had mattered not at all to Urasue.

And so it was with some surprise that by afternoon Kikyou found herself surrounded by the children of this isolated mountain village, who all insisted on helping as she searched the forest for useful herbs. These children were strangers, ignorant of the danger they faced. They would flee from her if they knew the truth of what she was and where she had come from. And yet they were interested in her precisely because she was a stranger. New and unknown to them, her presence provided a bit of excitement in lives that must otherwise seem dull.

She knew she ought not to hide what she was from the people of this humble village, but she could not bring herself to speak the truth. Not when they had welcomed her into their midst. Not when the smiling faces of their children gave her even a moment of respite, a fragile thread of happiness tangled through the turmoil that writhed in her heart.

Surrounded by the quiet of the forest, soothed by the smiling faces of the children around her, Kikyou could finally begin to examine her circumstances without simply being overcome by anger. She was beginning to recognize that ceaseless anger for what it was: the all-consuming fury she had felt as the life bled from her body and death claimed her. It was the selfsame fury she had felt toward the man who had been responsible for that death, though she dared not think too carefully about _him_ lest that only make her situation more unpleasant.

Rage kindled inside her in spite of her determination to remain calm. Betrayed by a man to whom she had given her trust…

Was there no way to move past that hatred and pain? Somewhere beyond this village, Kikyou had little doubt that the Shikon no Tama was waiting for her. Could she find it in her current condition? Could she purify it and keep it safe?

She had no answer.

It was small solace that the children seemed oblivious to her anger. Instead, they sought her approval. Each wanted to be more useful to her than the last, bringing her sprigs of all different kinds of plants in the hopes that this one would be more valuable or more rare than any other. For her part, Kikyou taught them what each plant was called — though she suspected that they were already familiar with many of them — and what its medicinal uses might be, if she knew them.

It reminded her with a pang of all the afternoons she had spent teaching the same herb lore to her sister. Indeed, it was difficult not to think of her sister, who had been not much older than these children when Kikyou died. She wondered suddenly what had become of Kaede after her death. Was her sister still alive and well? Had she begun training so that she might become the village's next priestess, as she had always hoped to do?

The sudden thought of her sister filled her with a greater sense of urgency than anything else since her resurrection. Memories began to return to her, vague at first and then clearer. Memories of Kaede being grievously wounded on that day, the day that she herself had died, though she could not recall the nature of the injury, only the sight of her sister's clothes stained with slowly oozing blood. If Kaede had died as well…

For the hundredth time, Kikyou wondered how much time had passed since last she lived. How much had been lost forever since then?

Perhaps staying in this village was the wrong choice. Perhaps what she needed to do was go back home — to go back to the beginning, where all of this had started, and follow the path from there. Perhaps…

"Kikyou-sama, is something wrong?" one of the children, a girl perhaps half a year younger than Sayo, asked. In her arms she held a bundle of fragrant herbs. In some cases it looked as if she had uprooted entire plants.

Kikyou realized that she had stopped her work, had allowed her basket of herbs to fall to the ground at her feet, letting thoughts of her past overwhelm the present. The Shikon no Tama, Kaede, her old village… it seemed that she would never escape the past, even here where no one knew her true identity. "It's nothing," she assured the little girl. "I'm just tired, is all."

"She's just tired," Sayo piped up defensively. She was almost fiercely protective of Kikyou, as if their brief encounter in the forest had forged some sort of connection between them. "Killing the witch took a lot out of her!"

Kikyou affected what she hoped was a tired smile. "Let's finish up here and take a break before we carry all of this back to the village," she decided. "Can you help me sort through all these plants?"

The children chorused an enthusiastic affirmative.

For just a moment, Kikyou set aside what had been and what was to come and focused instead on the children clustered around her. Such sweet children, all of them. How she had wished for the life of an ordinary woman; how she had yearned to one day bear children of her own. She had known then, as she still knew now, that such would never be her fate. This was the closest she would likely ever come to that life.

And for the space of the time it took to sort the herbs, bundle them back into her basket, and make their way back to the village, Kikyou could pretend that this was her life in truth.

All the same, she could not ignore the distant feeling of unease that began to creep along the forest path behind them as they returned to the village. It was a feeling with which she was intimately familiar, one that she wished more than anything to deny.

Can I not have this much? she wondered, futilely railing against the inevitable.

For the sensation that slipped along the forest path and into her consciousness was an awareness of the Shikon no Tama. She could feel it, the same way she could feel the sun on her skin and determine its direction even with her eyes closed. She had often sensed the jewel this way in life, ever aware of its location even when it was not on its chain around her neck.

The return of that sensation made her want to weep, or to scream her frustration to the world. She did neither of those things, but docilely led the children back to their homes as if nothing at all were the matter.

Even in the privacy of her own hut, she did not let her anger and frustration show. Instead she forced herself to calm, succeeding largely through the discipline instilled by endless years of practice. She needed to think, and so she sat down to process the herbs she had just collected. At least this gave her something productive to do with her hands while her mind worked through the possibilities.

If her ability to sense the Shikon no Tama had indeed returned to her, what other abilities might be restored over the days to come? And what challenges might be waiting for her?

Whatever lay ahead, she must be ready for it at any cost. That would require preparation, which would in turn require time. It was almost a relief to come to this conclusion.

She would, she thought, stay here in this village for a while yet. It was quiet and isolated here, and what better place to recover her strength? She would venture forth to seek the jewel when she was ready. And this time, she would put an end to it once and for all.

 

Late in the afternoon, Miroku resumed his place on the veranda. He knew Sango had meant for him to stay where she had left him, safely out of the way in the guest room, but he had begun to feel stifled there. He had endured the feeling of being trapped for as long as he could before finally fleeing. It had come as something of a surprise that no one had prevented him from doing so.

Being out of doors did little to soothe his frayed nerves, but at least he no longer felt as if the walls were going to collapse on top of him. His thoughts raced as swiftly as the wind, freed now from the confinement of walls, yet always returned to the last thing Sango had told him. _What happens to the Shikon no Tama will be none of your concern._

As the sun made its steady way across the sky, he could feel the day slipping away from him. Like the Shikon jewel, like promises of wishes. Like his last chance to live.

He wondered if he was only imagining the ache in his right hand.

The soft sound of the door sliding open roused him from his reverie in time to see Sango emerge from the house, followed by her father and brother. Thinking that perhaps his removal from the village had come sooner than Sango had thought it might, Miroku turned to face the slayers only to find that they were paying him no mind at all.

"You know where to go?" Sango's father asked.

Solemn under the weight of unexpected responsibility, Kohaku gave an earnest nod. From her perch on the boy's shoulder, Kirara mewed.

"That's my boy."

Miroku realized belatedly that Kohaku was dressed for travel and armed with a pack and his chain scythe.

"Take good care of him, Kirara," Sango said, as much to her brother as to the nekomata. "We want him back in one piece." Kohaku looked slightly embarrassed by his sister's concern, but did not protest.

"There's no need to hold him up here," Sango's father pointed out. "If we keep him much longer, he won't get to his first objective before nightfall. Kirara, are you ready?"

The nekomata gave a chirp that must have been an affirmative and jumped down from her place on Kohaku's shoulder. As her paws touched the ground, a flash of fire swirled upward to consume her. The flames spread outward, growing larger and larger before dissipating to reveal a monstrous nekomata the size of a tiger.  Flames wreathed the creature's legs and long, curved fangs protruded from its enormous mouth. There could be no doubt that this was still Kirara. Even so, the transformation was shocking to behold. To think that only this morning, this astonishing creature had crawled into Miroku's lap and purred while he stroked her fur.

In this form, Kirara was large enough for Kohaku to mount and ride as if she were a horse. Indeed, she seemed to have no objection whatsoever as the boy slipped onto her back. He gripped with his legs rather than using any sort of saddle, his hands sinking into thick fur to find a grip.

Miroku thought fleetingly that riding a nekomata that way would be sure to attract undue attention. Then Kirara bunched powerful muscles and launched herself forward and up, into the air — and stayed there, hovering, while the family said their farewells. Abruptly, Miroku realized that attracting attention was perhaps entirely the point, and wondered where they were sending Kohaku, and for what purpose. Certainly, no one had seen fit to inform him that the boy would be leaving.

Then again, he thought sourly, so would he. And probably quite soon.

The thought made his heart pound harder, a forcible reminder of just how precarious his situation had become. If they threw him out, they would consign him to death. They knew that, and yet they had no intention of letting him stay or allowing him to take the piece of the Shikon no Tama. Even knowing the secret of the kazaana, they chose to let him die.

Miroku did not want to die. Not when he might yet have a chance at life.

When all was said and done, Kirara rose into the sky, drifted over the wall that encircled the village, and disappeared. Miroku wondered only vaguely where she was going and what Kohaku's mission was. He knew better than to ask. He was on borrowed time already. No one was going to tell him anything at this point.

Sango paid him no mind, save a pitying look, as she headed back into the house. Her father hesitated a moment, as if he were considering joining Miroku on the veranda.

Miroku briefly entertained the idea of trying to bargain with him. Surely a monk could be of some use to the slayers, especially if one took into account the power of the air rip in his hand. A mutually beneficial partnership was not out of the question. But common sense dictated that if the slayers wished to work with holy men, they would already be doing so. And in the end Iwao, like his daughter, was no fool. He would know that Miroku's loyalty was likely to go only so far as self-preservation demanded.

"Something is troubling you," Iwao observed.

Miroku glanced up at him. "Your daughter has decided that I must leave this village soon."

Sango's father chuckled, then dropped gently to sit beside Miroku. "She is… strong-willed. And she has not taken much of a liking to you, I am afraid."

"I had noticed that much."

"No one will force you to leave, if that is what you fear."

Miroku looked down to where his hands were folded in his lap, the one whole and the one pierced by its deadly curse, bound in cloth and sealed by prayer beads. "That is not what I fear." He seldom found himself at a loss for words; the feeling was unfamiliar, uncomfortable. "If I will not be permitted to use the jewel, then I must find another means of freeing myself from the curse of the kazaana. To do that, I must leave."

"Yours is a difficult position." Iwao sighed, considering. "With your permission, I will spread the word of Naraku among my slayers. If we hear word of your enemy, we will take action."

Miroku did not really believe that even the slayers could track down a youkai that had successfully avoided detection for three generations, but he still appreciated the offer. He remembered all too well his father's eternal, fruitless search, and the way that search had ended. He wondered, not quite shuddering, if such would be his fate, too: to die screaming as the void consumed him whole. "There is nothing I can say or do that will convince you to do more, is there?"

"What more would you have me do?" Iwao asked, his voice betraying more tension than Miroku would have suspected. "In this village we know all too well what the Shikon no Tama is capable of, even in the hands of one that would not use its power for evil ends. There is no telling what a man might do, if he held the power of the Shikon jewel in his hands — or what its power might do to him." He paused. There was a certain humor in his voice, as if he did not quite agree with what he was about to say. "And my daughter has told me that you are perhaps not the most trustworthy of men to begin with."

"I admit I have done nothing to convince her otherwise. My motives are entirely selfish." He said it with a shrug and a lighthearted tone that was entirely false, but which seemed to appease the other man. He could have attempted to deny it, and could probably even have done so convincingly, but what was the point? In the end, they would both know it for a lie. And for some reason Miroku no longer felt particularly like lying today. Better simply to skirt around the truth without committing one way or the other.

They spoke idly for a time after that, shifting the conversation to safer topics, until the scent of cooking began to waft from inside the house as Sango prepared dinner. Iwao excused himself and went inside shortly afterward, leaving Miroku to his thoughts. Miroku was not sure this was an improvement. Iwao had not tried to offer any solutions, but their conversation had at least been a distraction.

By now the sun had dipped low enough to brush the horizon, slowly tingeing the clouds overhead with deepening shades of red and violet. Miroku did not mind the encroaching darkness. It seemed almost a reflection of his mood.

He knew now that nothing he could say or do would convince the slayers to aid him beyond seeking signs of Naraku. They were never going to agree to let him use the jewel, even though it was his last, best chance to survive his curse. Death hung like a stormcloud over him, and he imagined his long-sought enemy laughing at his misfortune. To be so close to salvation and then be prevented from reaching it… it stretched the limits of his endurance and his temper.

He closed his eyes, shutting out the vibrant colors of the sunset. Better that he leave this place sooner, rather than later.

It was late in the night before Miroku finally left his place on the veranda and went into the house again. The large, too-empty building was silent and still in the darkness, seeming even more empty and sad with Kohaku and Kirara gone. Such a large house for such a small family.

He thought of Iwao's promise, that no one would force him to leave. If things were different, he might even have considered staying here a while.

But things were not different. He needed to do what must be done, no matter the cost, and this might be his only chance.

It took him longer than he would have liked to find where Sango's father had hidden the piece of the Shikon no Tama. It glowed faintly in the gloom of night, and was entirely unguarded where it sat upon a shelf above the family shrine. A part of him wanted to sneer at such foolishness. Sango had cautioned him so carefully about its power, and yet there it was, out in the open for anyone to see. All he had to do was take it.

Another part of him felt a twinge of guilt at the mere thought of stealing a family heirloom. It was obviously important not just to the village's pride, but to Sango and her family, that the jewel remain here. And whatever Sango might think of him, he really had no wish to hurt her.

He remembered the way she had looked earlier, when he had pretended her sweet smile was for him. If things were different, he thought, feeling his heart stir unpleasantly all over again, he might even…

He knew better than to think like that, to let his foolish fantasies get the better of him, and sternly reminded himself of the truth of the situation.  It was the same thing he did every time he felt himself growing too attached to a woman that had shown him even the tiniest bit of kindness or sympathy. It would never happen. Could never happen. Not with a woman he might actually come to care for. Not until the kazaana was gone and he could have some hope for a normal life, however bereft of money and family connections he might still be.

As long as the kazaana remained in his palm, he was a danger not only to himself but to everyone around him.

It always came down to that: if things were different… but they were not.

Back at the cave, Sango had spoken of unintended consequences, and her words had given him pause. But in the end those words were not enough to stop him. There might be unintended consequences if he tried to use the jewel's power to destroy Naraku and the curse that threatened each day to kill him… but what did he care about unintended consequences? If he used the jewel, he would _live_. He would be freed from the specter of the curse that had killed his father and grandfather before him. It was all he had ever wanted. It would be enough, no matter the consequences.

Thus resolved, he seized hold of the tiny piece of the jewel and disappeared into the night.

 

 The woman was visibly trembling. She was more of a girl than a woman, really, and obviously terrified. Naraku could have that effect on ordinary people.

"What do you want to know?" she asked. Her pathetic trembling was echoed in her voice. Caught alone in the dark of night, just outside the feeble protection of her village, she must feel as if her very life were at stake. Naraku wondered idly if she would soil herself if he were to press her just a little harder. He was aware that to others, this woman would seem pitiful, but was himself incapable of such emotions.

"What happened when the centipede died?" he probed, mildly irritated at having to ask again. He had wasted enough time just returning to this place. He did not wish to waste more time because his unwilling informant was too distressed to cooperate.

"The woman killed it - the slayer," the woman stammered. "W-with that big weapon of hers."

He had gathered that much just from taking a look around. The beast's corpse was still lying in the field where it had died so disgracefully. Hacked into pieces, with parts of its body sliced away and carried off, what remained of the centipede youkai might also be described as pitiful.

"Yes," he said, stepping closer. The woman flinched away. "Tell me what happened after that."

"I don't know!" she whimpered, squeezing her eyes shut and looking away. "I didn't see."

"Did the slayer woman take anything from the centipede's body?" he prompted.

Slowly, the woman's eyes opened. Tears slid down her cheeks. "Yes. Now I remember. She took some pieces of its body with her when she left. And - and a gem of some sort! The monk found it, I think, but she claimed it as her reward. She said that would be payment enough, that my father didn't owe her anything else for killing the youkai."

Naraku reined in a sense of potent urgency. "And did she say what this gem was, or why she valued it so highly?"

"She said… she said it was part of the Shikon no Tama," the woman told him. Her words came more slowly as she spoke, as if she were beginning to realize that she was not the one facing the greatest danger, and this masked man who had confronted her out of the night's abyss had another, more important target. As if she were no longer quite sure she wanted to cooperate with him.

"So it has returned," Naraku murmured, more to himself than to the hapless woman cowering in front of him.

"I don't know! I only know what she said! I don't know if any of it was true. She could have been wrong."

The slayer woman could have been wrong, it was true. But Naraku did not think she had been. "You say that the slayer claimed the jewel as reward for slaying the youkai," he prompted. "She took it with her when she left?"

His victim would not look at him. "Yes."

"Where did she go when she left here?"

"I don't know. I-I think they went north when they left here."

That piqued his interest. "They?"

"The monk went with her," the woman admitted. "I don't think she wanted him to, but they were together when they left here. I don't know where they went after that. Father said not to watch too closely, that the location of the slayer base is a closely guarded secret. They helped us, so we owed it to them not to seek out their secrets."

"So you have no idea where they went from here," he said dryly, more statement than question. "If no one knows where their village is, how did your father hire them in the first place?" he demanded, his voice ever so slightly betraying his impatience.

The girl flinched away from him again as if he had made to strike her. The silly thing did not even realize that when he decided to hurt her, she would know. Finally regaining control of herself, or perhaps realizing that he would hurt her if she did not answer, she managed to say, "One of their messengers came through a couple of days ago. We sent word with him that we needed help, and then the other slayer showed up yesterday to take care of the youkai."

Already the clues were beginning to add up. If it had taken only a day or two to mobilize a response to this village's plea for help, then the slayers' home base could not be terribly far away. Now that he knew where to look, the slayers—and their piece of the Shikon no Tama—would not be difficult to find.

His victim was restless, perhaps realizing that she had now given him the information he wanted. "I've told you everything I know," she whined. "Please… I just want to go home. I won't tell anyone about any of this. Just let me go home…"

Behind his mask, Naraku's lips curled into a smile she would never see.


	6. Chapter 6

Sango's father was calmly seated at the family table when she emerged from her room to go prepare breakfast. This was such a familiar occurrence that she barely even glanced his way as she walked past. "It would seem our visitor has left us," he said.

Sango froze, fury igniting in her heart as all thought of breakfast fled. She turned abruptly to make her way to the family shrine, to the place where her father had left the piece of the Shikon no Tama and found her worst fears confirmed: the jewel was gone. However small this pieces of it had been, it was still part of the Shikon jewel. It was still dangerous. It belonged here, where it could be protected. She had made all of those things clear to the monk, and still he had taken it.

Anger and disbelief set her limbs to trembling.

"I will find him," she said as her father followed her into the shrine room. "I will find him, and I will bring back the jewel he has stolen."

"I thought you might say that," Iwao murmured.

"Do not try to stop me," she warned him. "I allowed him to follow me here. I told him our secrets. This is my responsibility."

He did not try to argue with her—or to reason with her. Instead, "Take care with that one, Sango."

As he had intended, that gave her pause. "I can handle myself, Father."

"I don't doubt that," he agreed. It grated on her nerves to see him so apparently unbothered by their guest's betrayal. "However, Miroku is a desperate man just now. That will make him more dangerous than most. He is clever and underhanded, and if he told us the truth about that curse of his…" He trailed off, letting her imagination fill in the details.

Sango scowled, but knew better than to ask why he was telling her this. She might be a youkai taiji-ya in her own right now, and might have earned her place among the village elders, but he was still the village headman and she was still his daughter. There would always be something else she must yet learn from him.

"I understand the risks, Father," she said, speaking carefully, reining in her temper as a good fighter must. "But he has stolen a piece of the Shikon no Tama. It must be returned to the village." She almost added that the jewel must not be allowed to fall into the wrong hands, but bit back the comment because she had already allowed it to fall into the wrong hands.

"I don't disagree. However, I do caution you not to act rashly." She heard what he did not say: if you rush into this without thinking, you will run right into whatever trap the monk sets for you.

Sango bowed her head. "I will leave as soon as the proper preparations have been made."

She hated the thought of giving that traitorous monk any more of a head start, but understood the necessity. A man in Miroku's position was capable of anything, and so she must be ready for anything. That would mean more than just grabbing her hiraikotsu and calling for Kirara.

Sango hesitated, recalling that she had sent Kirara away with Kohaku only yesterday. With the nekomata's assistance, she would have made short work of tracking down the monk and retrieving the jewel. Without Kirara, it would be a much more difficult endeavor. Sango steeled herself and went to gather the supplies she would need for the journey ahead. The task before her might be difficult, but that made it all the more vital. There was no time to lose.

 

It had seemed like a brilliant plan at the time: steal the piece of the Shikon no Tama from the slayers and escape from their village with the prize in hand and no one the wiser. Brilliant, maybe, but also desperate and foolhardy.

Stealing the jewel had been one thing. Getting out of the village with it—and without being detected—had been another thing altogether. It had taken him far longer than he would have liked to find a place where he could safely scale the wall without being seen by the guards, and even longer after that to make his way down the forested hillside without raising an alarm. At last he'd reached the road and set off at random. The sun had begun to rise before he passed the first village.

By the time he skirted the next small village, his empty stomach complaining because he hadn't stopped to pilfer any food for his journey, he was having second thoughts. He wasn't moving fast enough to feel comfortable stopping for even a short while. It seemed inevitable that the wrath of the slayers, or at least of Sango, would soon descend upon him.

With the sun rising ever higher and the day growing brighter and brighter, he would have to tread carefully from here on out. He wouldn't be able to slink past the next hamlet unnoticed. A traveling monk passing through was unlikely to arouse much suspicion. He would only attract  unwanted attention if someone saw him skulking about among the fields. Beyond such meager precautions, he could only hope he had not left enough of a trail for angry pursuers to easily follow.

He sweet-talked a breakfast out of a kind family in the next village and kept walking. And walking. And walking.

By mid afternoon he still had seen no sign of any pursuit and was getting very tired of walking. He told himself that perhaps he would take a break in the next village. That way he could catch his breath and take stock of his situation. Maybe he could even come up with a plan.

If he had somehow managed to escape from the slayers, he wasn't sure what to do or where to go next. He hadn't really thought about anything beyond getting away. Perhaps he could go back to his childhood home to regroup. The temple where he'd grown up was isolated, and these days was home to only one monk. Certainly, it would make it difficult for the slayers to find him, so long as he was careful not to leave a trail leading up to the temple door.

He was still mulling over possibilities when he arrived at that next village. It was quite a bit larger than any of the settlements he had passed through so far, and at first he was hopeful. But then one of the village women looked up and noticed the newcomer heading down the street. She glanced at him, then stopped and turned to stare. The look on her face was one of shocked horror.

Miroku slowed his pace but kept moving. He did not know what could have caused that reaction, but it couldn't be good. This was just what he needed today: to walk right into the middle of a bad situation.

He got the same reaction from the next group he passed. A woman farther down the street saw him, then turned and hurried back into town, calling for someone.

At that point Miroku stopped walking and waited for her to return. The villagers' behavior was mystifying… unless of course the slayers had somehow reached this place before he got here, and warned the villagers what to look for. He remembered quite vividly the way the nekomata had flown through the air to carry Kohaku off on whatever mission he'd been dispatched on.

If the slayers had indeed spread word of his misdeed, he felt it prudent not to do anything to arouse suspicion or anger. He might still have a chance to talk his way out of the situation.

After an interminable, uncomfortable wait, the woman returned. This time a man was with her. Her husband? Miroku supposed it didn't matter.

"Hello, good sir," Miroku greeted him amiably. "I gather there seems to be some sort of trouble in your lovely village. Is there any way I can be of assistance?"

"What is the meaning of this?" the man demanded, ignoring Miroku's attempt at civility and not even bothering to introduce himself.

Miroku was at a loss. A glance at the gathered villagers did not help matters. "I don't follow."

"You look just like the monk that's been carousing in our teahouse for the last three days," the man growled. "How can you be there and here at the same time?"

Miroku allowed the man's angry tone to flow past him. "Take me there, please," he said, sounding as urgent as possible. "It seems I was right and there is indeed trouble afoot in your village." The look the man gave him was darkly unpleasant, as if he did not believe a single word that had just been said. "You see, I am on the trail of a tanuki that's been known to impersonate me and get into the worst trouble imaginable, only to disappear just before it is held accountable for its actions. It may be that I've caught up to the fiend at last."

He was afraid he would have to keep talking, but the man relented. "If I take you there, you'll roust him out of our town?" he asked.

Miroku nodded, hoping his guess about the miscreant's true identity was correct, and followed as the man led him down the town's main street. If he was right about what was going on here, he'd just had an enormous stroke of luck.

The tea house was a somewhat shabby building much like the others in town, if somewhat larger than most. A sign outside was the only indication of what might be found within. Miroku's guide planted himself just outside the door, arms crossed over his chest, his powerful glare indicating that Miroku would proceed alone.

Shaking off the man's unwelcoming demeanor, Miroku left his sandals on the porch and entered the tea house. The interior was much as he expected, with a large open space for entertaining. What was somewhat less expected was seeing his own face looking back at him from across the room, where he was apparently enjoying the company of several dancing girls. He found it vaguely surprising that a town of this size could support this many female entertainers, and wondered if perhaps his guide's displeasure stemmed from some recent corruption of the local girls.

Heedless of the trouble brewing outside, the other Miroku's expression was one of carefree enjoyment. Or at least it was until he laid eyes on who had just entered the tea house.

Ordinarily Miroku would have liked to enjoy the spectacle a bit, himself, but he was short on time. As the look on the fake Miroku's face shifted toward panicked astonishment, the real one raised his voice and said, "All right, impostor. What do you have to say for yourself?"

Everyone in the tea house turned to stare in shock. The other monk sputtered. Recovering his composure, he shot back, "It is you who is the impostor!" He stood up and swayed a bit drunkenly. "Begone! Sully my reputation no more!"

Miroku sighed. "I don't have time for this," he muttered and brandished his staff. "If you insist on a fight, I'll give you one."

His adversary stumbled backward. Miroku took this as an invitation, moving forward with purpose. "I'm afraid you've all been deceived," he said loudly enough that everyone in the room could hear. "The man you've been entertaining these past several days is no man," he declared. He raised the staff and brought it down with enough force to momentarily stun the impostor—and dispel the illusion.

Smoke clouded the tea house the moment the staff connected with the monk's forehead. When it cleared, there was no sign that the impostor had ever been there. "Nothing but a tanuki's trick," Miroku explained.

For a moment no one moved. Then he found himself abruptly surrounded by young women who were duly impressed by his heroics.

It was exactly the sort of situation he always hoped to find himself in, and he had no time to stay and enjoy it. The longer he stayed here, the more time his adversary had to escape. He needed to find out if his suspicions were correct before that could happen. So he extricated himself from the situation as delicately as he could.

It wasn't difficult. All he had to do was pretend to be suitably pious and refuse to partake in any earthly pleasures. Now that the villain was vanquished, he must be on his way, no matter how much it pained him to leave behind the thought of dancing girls and free booze. The men of the town, at least, would be glad to see him go.

He made his way out of town amid a series of glares that warned him against ever coming back. He focused instead on following the slight mental prickling sensation that told him which way the tanuki had fled. He followed that feeling away from the road and across a couple of fields before coming to a dense growth of trees. The creature must truly have been frightened to come so far so quickly.

Miroku waited just beyond the edge of the trees, but there was no sign of his quarry. Finally, he grew impatient and called, "You can come out now."

For a long time nothing happened. Not a single leaf seemed to stir. And then there came a sudden rustling of the undergrowth and a tanuki came slinking out. A very familiar tanuki, one that was more commonly known to haunt the area around the temple where Miroku had grown up. It seemed that the situation here was much as he had suspected, though he couldn't fathom why.

"All right, Hachi, I don't have much time," Miroku began, "so tell me what in the world you're doing all the way out here."

"Master Mushin sent me to find you," the tanuki explained.

"What for?"

Hachi trembled visibly, as if he were about to deliver bad news. "He says he is dying. You should come at once."

Miroku cursed. "That stupid sot. I don't have time for his nonsense." He paused, exasperated, then had to ask. "Why does he think he's dying?"

"I didn't ask," Hachi admitted.

Miroku cursed again. That idiot Mushin had the worst timing. He was tempted to ignore the old man's request just because of the deplorable timing. But what if he'd told Hachi the truth?

Hachi watched in silent terror as Miroku vented his anger. When he had finally finished cursing, Hachi ventured, "What will you do now, Miroku-sama? Will you go back to the temple like Mushin asked?"

He considered his options. "I don't think I have the luxury of going to the temple just yet. If the old man wants me to be there when he dies, he's going to have to wait."

The tanuki knew him well enough to know what that meant. "You're in some kind of trouble," he observed.

Miroku couldn't help but smirk. "Some kind, yes."

"You're in a hurry," the tanuki went on, putting the pieces together. "But you didn't ask me to take you to the temple tonight…" He trailed off, ears drooping. "Tell me what you did."

How to put it most delicately? "I've come into possession of a very powerful relic," Miroku hedged.

"What did you steal this time?" Hachi asked. A greedy gleam appeared in his eye, as if he wanted in on whatever plot was afoot.

"That doesn't matter," Miroku interjected, hoping to cut off any further complaints—or requests for more information. The less anybody, even Hachi, knew about what he was doing, the better. "What matters is that its former owner is probably on my trail right now and I'd really rather not be caught with the thing."

The tanuki whined, flattening his ears even closer to his skull."Why do you have that scary look on your face?"

With a wicked grin, Miroku told him, "Because that's where you come in, my shape-changing friend."

 

Naraku had much to consider as he made his way back to Hitomi Castle, and much to accomplish in a very short time. If the girl had been telling the truth, and he had no reason to think she had not, in the end, then the mysterious slayers had come into possession of a piece of the Shikon no Tama.

This did not make them particularly dangerous, but it was irksome. Their secretive ways and hidden base of operations meant that he would have to take certain steps to find them before he could retrieve their piece of the jewel. It would be a small inconvenience, but an inconvenience — and a delay — nonetheless. He thought with a half-hidden smirk that Lord Hitomi Kagewaki would not be pleased by the delay.

He stepped off the road, moving instead among the trees that bordered it on one side. There was no path here, but he did not need one. As he made his way deeper into the forest, he became gradually aware of the sound of insects buzzing. He headed toward the sound until it had reached a nearly unbearable volume. The trees in this part of the forest were covered with enormous wasps, all buzzing furiously as they crawled over the trees. Their black carapaces flashed in iridescent shades of blue and violet in the small patches of sunlight that filtered past the thick layer of leaves overhead.

If the insects were bothered by his sudden appearance, they gave no sign of further agitation. This pleased him, as he had been raising this clutch of insects here for several months now. It would have been disappointing had they failed to recognize their most dutiful master.

He selected a likely looking insect and extricated it from the mass that crawled upon a nearby tree. The buzzing from the other wasps grew even more intense as he lofted this one into the air. Its wings beat rapidly until they blurred into invisibility, but it remained aloft. One by one, the other wasps rose to join their companion until the air was thick with enormous buzzing carapaces and throbbing wings. Behind his baboon's mask, Naraku grinned.

"Find the village of the youkai taiji-ya," he said aloud, although there was no need for that. The wasps should be able to understand his intent without the spoken command. "When you have found the village, return to me."

Half of the wasps rose, drifting upward past the leaves of the canopy overhead, and dispersed.

To the remainder, he said, "Find me one of the wandering slayers. I believe my lord may have need of their services."

Just as their fellows had done, the remaining wasps drifted upward to clear the canopy before heading off in all directions to do as he had bid. He waited there until the last of the buzzing had followed, just to make sure that none of the wasps returned in confusion. Then, the purpose of his detour accomplished, Naraku returned to the road and continued on the way to his lord's castle.

All he needed to do now was wait.

 

Morning was gentle in this isolated village. Between the trees and the mountains, the light seemed reluctant to reach down to touch the buildings and people that lived there. With the arrival of the light, Kikyou's lonely vigil ended.

She rose from the mat where she had lain for much of the night, unmoving but not sleeping, and set about putting her hut in order for the day. The borrowed hut felt much more like a home with bundles of herbs hung to dry. As she prepared the morning meal, Kikyou could almost pretend that she could stay in this place and simply be a normal village priestess for the rest of her days. How sweetly fulfilling would it be to stay here, to teach her arts to Sayo and the other children, to heal the small, simple hurts that would affect a place like this?

Kikyou knew she could not stay forever, but it was nice to wish. Much more pleasant than furtively disposing of her supposed breakfast in the fire so that whoever was lurking outside her hut would think she had eaten the food. She could sense the presence, had sensed it since just after first light, but not well enough to recognize it.

What, she wondered, anger flaring dangerously, might the villagers suspect, that they had set someone to watching her? She had taken pains to make sure they thought she was nothing more than she seemed. Were her efforts futile after all?

Still pretending that she had no idea she was being watched, Kikyou set about sweeping the floor of her hut. It was not particularly in need of sweeping, but this gave her an excuse to move ever closer to the doorway. She took her time, giving the observer plenty of time to slink away, but at last she threw open the mat that covered the doorway and found herself face to face with Sayo.

For a moment Kikyou did not know how to react. This was not at all what she had expected. And then she did know how to react, after all: she giggled as the little girl's expression shifted from startled to chagrined.

"How long have you been out there, Sayo?" she asked, keeping her tone gentle. "Why didn't you ask to come in?"

"I didn't want to bother you so early," Sayo admitted, staring firmly at the ground between her feet.

"Oh, Sayo, you're not bothering me. Why don't you come in?" She felt more or less like a wolf, inviting this innocent child into her den all unawares.

But Sayo was entirely unperturbed as she skipped into Kikyou's hut. Although she must have seen her own mother prepare plants for drying in much this same way, the child stared delightedly at the herbs Kikyou had prepared last night. She was full of questions as Kikyou put away the broom and collected her baskets, wanting to know how long each of the herbs would need to dry and how they would need to be prepared before they could be useful.

Feeling somewhat more at ease to know that the presence lurking outside had merely been Sayo all along, Kikyou happily answered the questions. In this, at least, she could be both truthful and useful.

When at last she had gathered everything she would need, Kikyou said, "I am going back into the woods today to see if I can find a few more herbs. Would you like to come with me?"

Of course she did. And naturally, by the time they had made their way out of the village and into the woods, all of the other children had asked to come along as well. Although their presence meant that she must maintain careful control of herself, she accepted their company without complaint. How many times in her first life had she wished to spend her days just like this? Yet the feeling of tranquility could not penetrate all the way to her heart. Deep down, her heart still raged at the memory of betrayal and death and rebirth.

They had to range a bit further away from the village this time, as they had cleared most of the vicinity of its useful herbs. She would have to remember to teach the children to leave a bit more behind next time, to facilitate future regrowth.

All things considered, it was a pleasant way to spend a morning. The forest was quiet, dim and peaceful as if nothing had ever disturbed its calm. Once or twice they encountered a pair of villagers, out gathering wood and other supplies, but for the most part Kikyou and the children were utterly alone.

It was about midday when she realized that she and the children were being watched, and this time she was certain the gaze she sensed was malevolent. She had planned to take the children back to the village before now, but there was only one more plant that she wished to find and she yet had hope that it might grow in this area. And, she had to admit, they had found a truly beautiful spot that she was reluctant to leave.

The clearing was large and filled with flowering plants, many of which had useful medicinal properties. The children had been taking turns bringing samples to her to show off what they remembered from yesterday's excursion, but Kikyou's attention was increasingly drawn to a stand of trees on the far side of the clearing. Someone, she was certain, was hiding there. That same someone was watching, and their intentions were unkind.

Perhaps she ought to take the children back to the village, just to be safe.

"What does this one do, Kikyou-sama?" one of the girls asked, hopefully holding up a sprig.

"That one helps wounds to close," Kikyou replied absently, her gaze still drawn to those trees.

The children fell to chattering quietly among themselves. Kikyou could almost hear voices coming from the trees where the watcher hid.

"Excuse me," she said quite clearly, irritation getting the better of her. The children all looked at her, then followed her gaze to the stand of trees.

"Is someone there?" one of the children asked, though Kikyou did not look to see if the question was directed at her or another of the children.

Finally, a man dressed in the clothes of a traveling monk emerged from the stand of trees, followed by another, younger man who must have been his student. "Ah, so you noticed me, then?" he said, his voice falsely amiable.

Kikyou felt cold. Somehow, this man knew what she was.

"You've been watching me for a long time now," she told him. It required delicate balance to keep the anger out of her voice. She managed it, though her words were still blunt.

"Your beauty has entranced me," he told her. The words were so blatantly false as to be almost offensive. "I cannot help but stare," he went on.

Her patience began to wear thin. "Surely you jest."

The monk narrowed his eyes dangerously. He signaled to his student, who reached into his sleeve and withdrew a bound scroll. The younger man tossed the scroll to the ground at Kikyou's feet, then stepped back to eye her haughtily from the protection afforded him by his master.

Kikyou looked from the monk to the scroll and back again. She knew what he was planning: that she would be unable to touch the scroll without being harmed. She was equally certain that the scroll's power would not harm her. She wondered what he would make of that, and decided to find out.

"Could you pick that up for me?" the monk asked.

Smiling disarmingly, Kikyou knelt to retrieve the scroll. She could sense its power before she ever touched it. A powerful spell had been worked into the scroll, and it lashed out at her as her hand made contact with it. She twisted the spell around, using her own spiritual power to contain its force. All innocence, she held the scroll out for the monk to take. "Here you are," she said pleasantly. "This is a valuable scripture, isn't it? You wouldn't want to lose it."

"Yes," the monk replied, his voice grating as the awaited victory was denied him. "It possesses such power that it's said any youkai that touches it will be forced to reveal its true form."

"A valuable relic, indeed," Kikyou murmured.

Kikyou released her hold on the scroll's power as the monk snatched it from her hand. It was simple as releasing a bowstring, and nearly as satisfying. Though there was no visible effect, the monk recoiled as if he had been struck. Kikyou resisted the urge to smile. It served him right, after baiting her like that. To think, he thought she might be a youkai.

While the monk shared a panicked look with his student, she gathered the children to her. "We really should get back to the village," she told them sweetly. If the children had noticed the dangerous undercurrent to Kikyou's conversation with the monk, they gave no sign of it. Instead, they chorused their agreement with her decision to head home.

Sayo, as usual, stuck close to Kikyou's side as they followed the path home. One of the boys carried her basket of herbs, so she was able to accommodate another girl on her other side. The rest formed a loose group in front of her, leading the way.

Kikyou, however, could no longer take any pleasure in their presence. Now she must worry about what would happen when the monk and his student made their own way to the village, and she had no doubt that they would. What would they tell the villagers? Would the villagers trust her, or the newcomers? She did not particularly want to find out.

If she had been here longer, if she'd had more time to reinforce her connection to this village and its people, things might be different. But having been here only a few days, she was still very much the newcomer. The villagers were grateful to her for killing the witch that had haunted their mountains, but she was still an outsider to them. To all except their children.

She felt a pang, watching those children happily cluster around her on their way home. One more regret to add to the mountain that threatened to crush her heart.

"Miko-dono!" the monk called out suddenly from somewhere far behind. The children paused, looking to each other in confusion as if they had already forgotten about the unwanted interloper. Kikyou stopped walking and turned to look back.

The man stood as if in shadow, hardly visible through the trees but still a noticeable presence. "I don't know who you are or what regret you're holding on to," he went on. "But you don't belong in this place. You should return to where you belong."

Though her body gave no sign of it, the words pierced her as easily as an arrow might. Return to where you belong.

She had only just decided to stay in this place a while, but she knew the monk was right. She did not truly belong here, and she never would. This village could be only a temporary haven. There were other places she must go, and things she must do. She had deliberately ignored it all day, but she could still feel the ineffable pull of what must be the Shikon no Tama.

"What's he talking about?" one of the boys asked another. His companion only shrugged.

The sound of his voice drew Kikyou out of her reverie. "Come," she said to Sayo and the other children. "Let's keep going."

Nothing in the forest had changed since they came this way earlier in the morning. The forest was still calm and peaceful, dappled by occasional spills of sunlight through the leafy canopy. The children still wandered around her, dispersing and then clumping together again, sometimes bringing her flowers or interesting plants they had found. But Kikyou no longer felt at ease.

The villagers noticed the change as soon as she returned. She made sure that the children were reunited with their parents, so that it could never be said that the strange priestess had spirited away any unsuspecting and innocent children, and then allowed Sayo to escort her home.

She was going to miss Sayo, she thought. This child, who was so eager to learn, who reminded her so much of her own sister, would be difficult to leave behind.

"Say, Kikyou," Sayo began, then hesitated. They were alone now , just the two of them, and nearly to Kikyou's hut. She must have felt that she must speak now or there might never be a chance. "You're going to teach us more about plants tomorrow, right?"

How she wished to say yes, of course she would!

Even a child could understand what that silence meant.

"You aren't going to go anywhere, are you?" Sayo pressed.

"No, Sayo," she said absently, the lie like a knife in her heart. "I'm not going anywhere."

She realized she had already planned it out, without stopping to think about it. Tonight, while the village lay sleeping, she would creep away from her hut and they would never see her again. She had little doubt that the monk and his student would find their way to this place, nor that they would immediately begin sniffing around like eager dogs, seeking proof of their accusations. She intended to be long gone before they could stir up any real trouble for her.

Sayo reminded her of her own sister, Kaede, so much so that the idea of leaving her behind was painful. Yet she knew she must. In this place she had been able to ignore her feelings of anger and betrayal, and had been able to spend her days pretending she was other than what she was. The encounter with the monk today had shown her that she could not escape it, even here.

If there was no respite to be found even in this place, then there was no reason to linger.

She was about to send Sayo on her way when she heard an all too familiar voice. "Stop there, miko-dono."

Kikyou bristled as anger pushed all other thought aside. She fought and failed to keep her grip on her runaway emotions, humiliation billowing up like so much smoke to accompany her unrestrained fury.

Oblivious to the transformation occurring in Kikyou's heart, or perhaps just not caring, the monk continued, "Have you told them what you are, miko-dono? Do they know what they have welcomed into their midst?"

"I killed the mountain witch," she murmured, more to herself than anyone else. The villagers had been so happy the witch was dead that they hadn't asked any real questions. She hadn't lied.

But she had not told them what she really was.

"Get away from her, child," the monk cajoled. Until he spoke, Kikyou had not realized that Sayo was still standing—and trembling—beside her.

Regardless of the child's presence, she wished for her bow. Even though she was aware of the villagers' attention, some staring openly while others peered from dark doorways, she no longer cared what they saw. Now that it had been unleashed from the tight grip of her control, her fury threatened to consume her whole. It burned along her skin, seeming to seek an opening into the world.

She wondered sharply if this monk truly understood what he was doing.

"Sayo, go," she said quietly, the words sounding tight and forced, on the verge of cracking.

She did not look down to see the child abandon her for the safety of her own family. She knew better than to look away from an enemy. She'd done that once, and died for her foolishness.

She did not intend to die again.

As soon as the child was safely away, as if he had heard her very thoughts, the monk said, "You are dead, aren't you, miko-dono?"

She stood shaking and wondered if she could reach him to throttle him before the villagers dragged her down. "May I never know peace?" she asked him, but her voice betrayed her anger for the villagers to hear. "All I wanted was to stay here for a while. Can't you just pass through and let me be?"

"I'm afraid I cannot," the monk told her, though he did not sound the least bit regretful. "You are a danger to these people. I must put your soul to rest."

If she had her bow to hand, this nonsense would already be finished. But she did not have her bow, and so she was forced to endure the monk's pretensions. She yearned to scream: I am no danger to these people, only to you, and only because you will not leave me in peace! But in her anger the words could not seem to reach her lips.

She was so caught up in her anger that she had not realized the monk's companion was missing until he came running up to hand an object to his master. It was round and appeared to be ceramic, formed in the shape of a coiled dragon. "Here, Master," he said breathlessly. As if he were excited by the prospect of her imminent demise.

While the monk took the relic from his student and prepared whatever spell he thought to use against her, Kikyou felt suddenly calm. She knew this feeling, the instinctive sense of calm focus that descended whenever she was faced with an enemy. She had experienced that feeling so often in her days as the guardian of the Shikon no Tama. Now it was almost a familiar friend. Calm, and ready to lay waste to her opponent, Kikyou waited.

And then the monk was hurling the ceramic dragon statue directly toward her. As it moved through the air, it seemed almost to come to life, growing and flowing, spreading outward and lifting its head toward her. Kikyou allowed it to entangle her with its sinuous body, unperturbed by the way the cold ceramic coils felt against her flesh as the dragon squeezed.

She felt it when the spell began to take effect: the scales became suddenly warm, heating rapidly until they threatened to burn her. She felt suddenly light, as if her soul might indeed come unmoored from this new body into which she had been revived.

"Do not fight it, miko-dono," the monk urged. "Your soul will be saved from this fate."

"Leave me alone," Kikyou snapped, though it was far too late for that.

This man was truly a fool, to try to use spells on her twice in almost exactly the same way. Deftly, Kikyou shifted the flow of power until the force of the spell was directed not at her, but back into the writhing form of the ceramic dragon. For a moment, she exulted in the power she wielded—and in wielding that power against one who meant to do her harm.

The ceramic could not contain the full force of the spell and the dragon burst outward, shards of ceramic hurtling straight toward the monk… and also toward the hapless villagers. Some were able to duck back into their homes in time to be spared. Others, including the monk and his lackey, were not so lucky. Kikyou watched them for a moment in satisfaction. The monk had taken a large shard through the throat, and was in the process of silently bleeding out onto the ground, and his student writhed beside him, screaming, his hands covering whatever damage the shrapnel had done to his face.

Sayo, too, had been luckless in the end. She had been standing too close when the dragon shattered and had been struck by several pieces of broken clay.

The sight of that sweet child's blood gushing from the huge wound in the side of her neck brought Kikyou up short. It had been infinitely satisfying to give into her fury and end the troublesome monk's life, but she had never intended to harm the villagers. And Sayo…

Kikyou froze, horrified by the death her anger had wrought.

Angry eyes watched her from the darkness, and fearful eyes, too.

Sayo's mother wailed as she clutched her daughter's lifeless body. Her own shoulder had been torn open by half a dozen small shards, but that injury would likely heal without trouble. She would live. Sayo would not.

Kikyou could only watch, though a part of her shared the woman's suffering. But there was no comfort she could offer. This was all her doing. The monk had brought death upon himself by interfering and by refusing to leave, but it was Kikyou who had so arrogantly shattered the statue without regard for what might happen or who might be injured.

She shook free of her reverie. She had caused so much damage here. Perhaps she could set some of it right by helping tend to the wounded. She took a step toward the mourning woman.

"Get out of here, monster," someone said. "Haven't you done enough?"

"Leave, and don't come back," someone else said.

Someone, she did not see who, hurled a rock at her. It was the size of her fist, and when it smashed into her shoulder she noted absently that she did not feel any pain from the blow.

As more rocks followed the first, Kikyou backed slowly away from the angry mob of villagers. With each stone that failed to harm her, they grew more frightened… and more angry.

Anguish filled her heart as she realized she had no choice: she must leave, and she must leave now.


	7. Chapter 7

After two days on the road and innumerable false leads, Sango was beginning to wonder if the monk might escape her, after all. It seemed that no matter how swiftly she pursued, she was always hours behind, and he barely left so much as a footprint or an errant scrape from the butt of his staff for her to follow, forcing her to ask after him at every village she came to. And in every village, it was the same story: a monk had passed by, yes, but that was all.

It was all starting to seem just a little too convenient, like the monk had been ready to run from the moment he followed her home.

As she headed down the road and away from her latest failure, in the direction the villagers told her the monk had headed, she mulled over possibilities. This time she had even asked about traveling companions, only to be assured the monk was traveling alone. Assuming the villagers had told her the truth, she could at least count on not being outnumbered when she finally caught up.

 _If_ she ever caught up. The monk could hardly have evaded her more neatly if he'd planned the whole thing from the start. She'd never asked how he came to be in that particular village just before the centipede attacked. Perhaps he'd known all along what they would find there, and had simply bided his time, waiting for an opportunity.

This line of thinking made her so angry that she almost stormed past a crossroad without looking for signs of her quarry. Backtracking did little to improve her mood, nor did the fact that there was absolutely no sign that the monk had come this way at all.

The road she'd been following thus far was much more heavily traveled than the one that crossed it. Sango wondered whether the monk would be more likely to head toward people or away from them. If his ridiculous story about that family curse were to be believed, then he should head away from this road before it came to any large towns. She had a feeling that was the last thing he would do now.

It was a gamble, making an assumption like that about a man she barely knew — and about whom she knew next to nothing. She reined in angry impatience as best she could and took the time to look for the monk's trail along each of the possible paths, just to make sure.

She found no sign that anyone, much less the monk, had taken the cross road recently. All the tracks were quite worn down, and all of the vegetation growing alongside the road was intact. By contrast the main road, with its relative myriad of tracks that were only a few days old, at most, seemed the safer choice.

She set off again with a sigh, following the main road and wishing she had Kirara's help. With Kirara she would have caught up to the monk long ago and saved herself this pointless chase. But Kirara was far away with Kohaku, helping him deliver word of the Shikon jewel—now stolen!—to the itinerant slayers so the remaining pieces might be found and recovered.

With renewed resolve, Sango quickened her pace.

By late that afternoon, she had come to the outskirts of a fairly large town. She had seen a few marks on the road that might have been left by the monk's staff, but seemed no closer to catching him than she had been that morning. The townspeople watched with curiosity as she made her way into their town. Their reaction did not bother or surprise her; whatever care she took to appear ordinary in her travels, a woman wearing a sword and carrying a weapon the size of the hiraikotsu was always an unusual sight.

She approached a likely looking cluster of older women that stood deep in conversation beside the road, ignoring that she was the obvious topic of discussion. "Excuse me," she began, "I'm looking for someone, and I wonder if he might have passed through here today."

"Are you planning to use that sword?" one of the women asked acidly.

"Not if he agrees to return the family heirloom he stole," Sango replied with utter calm. She was far more likely to use nearly any of her other weapons on the monk before she would resort to the sword, but they didn't need to know that.

"A thief, is he?" one of the other women asked. She sounded far more sympathetic than the first had.

"Yes, though he clothes himself as a monk in service of the Buddha." She gave them a moment to consider that. "He is quite skilled at pretending to be what he says. He may not have seemed to be anything but what he appeared. Did someone like that come through here today?"

"Come through here?" the second woman seemed as if she wanted to laugh. "The scoundrel's still here, probably taking dinner with the headman and his lovely daughter!"

Sango's expression must have given away her thoughts.

"I told you that man was up to no good the moment he arrived," the second woman told her companions.

Another woman spoke up. "You wear a sword… do you really think _you_ should be handling a situation like this?" Her words practically dripped disdain.

"I carry a sword and this hiraikotsu—" she hefted the weapon for emphasis "— because I am a youkai taiji-ya. I can handle myself against one human thief." It wasn't the first time Sango's skill had been called into question. People were inclined to take her seriously when she was solving their youkai problems. They were more critical when there were no youkai to slay.

The group of local women shared a glance. They knew each other well enough to understand without words; Sango did not. She waited for them to sort things out and thought perhaps she should have approached one of the men instead.

Finally, the last woman in the group, who had been silent so far, said, "I will take you to the headman's house. If it is as you say, then the situation must be dealt with immediately."

As this last woman led the way further into town, Sango could sense the others watching her. She did not think they believed her story, but that didn't matter. What mattered was what the headman thought— and whether or not she could convince him to hand over a guest. There was, after all, nothing but her word to prove the monk had stolen the piece of the Shikon no Tama.

She had been counting on catching him in the open, not when he'd taken shelter in someone's home. This turn of events could complicate things.

The headman's house was large enough to be imposing and to display the family's wealth, but not so ostentatious as to require guards. Sango recognized it for what it was even before her guide pointed it out.

"Your friend mentioned that the headman has a daughter," she began. "Should I expect anyone else to be present?" As they drew nearer to the building she became aware of an eerie, depressive aura in the air, and had a feeling she knew how the monk had wormed his way in.

"The headman's wife died a few years ago," her guide explained. "His daughter is his only kin. They live here alone."

Sango nodded in acknowledgment. There might still be servants or bodyguards, and she did not want to rely too much on the word of one person, anyway.

"I can take it from here," she told the other woman. "Thank you for showing me the way."

"If that monk is really a con man, we don't need the likes of him swindling our headman," the woman replied, sounding surprisingly vehement. The headman must be well-regarded by his people. "And if he's stolen something of value from your family, the heirloom should be returned to its proper place. Good luck in your endeavor."

"My thanks," Sango said. The other woman took her leave, and Sango found herself facing the headman's home all alone. A part of her was furious that the monk would seek to take advantage of a family that sounded so like her own, but she did her best to control her flaring temper. She knew only what she had been told. It would be dangerous to think she knew the full truth of the situation. It would be dangerous, also, to allow anger to rule her.

To her relief, the headman, his daughter, and the monk were all sitting outside on the veranda to enjoy the sunset. Her anger flared at the sight of the monk, sitting with the family as if he belonged there and smiling up at the young woman who was pouring him a cup of sake. At least this would save her the trouble of gaining entry to the house.

All three of them looked up when they heard her approach, their quiet conversation dying away into uneasy silence. Sango met their gazes with the appearance of calm, half expecting the monk to somehow give himself away. But he was better than that. He stared at her as if he had never seen her, or anyone like her, before in his life.

The headman's expression was one of consternation. Sango supposed she might have seemed less strange had she showed up in full daylight rather than the growing gloom of dusk. Well, it couldn't be helped.

"Greetings, my lord," she began.

"What brings you to my family's home, stranger?" the headman asked. There was no particular hostility in the question, at least. He sounded almost resigned.

"Did the monk tell you he would take care of the dark aura that hovers over your home?" Sango asked in return.

"He did," was the cautious answer. "He performed the exorcism this afternoon. That is why we are celebrating tonight." He spoke like a man afraid he was about to have his worst fears confirmed.

A pang of sympathy stabbed at her heart. How many times had she heard of people swindled like this, by charlatans that called themselves monks or taiji-ya and fled before their deception could be discovered?

"My name is Sango," she told the headman, though her eyes remained fixed on the monk. She began to walk closer to the veranda. "I am a youkai taiji-ya. I think you know why I'm here: that monk's a fraud."

At that point two things happened at once. The headman seized the monk by the front of his robes, demanding to know the meaning of this. And the monk exclaimed, in a voice that was nothing like Miroku's, "You're a what?!"

The monk's eyes grew almost impossibly wide as he fought to free himself from the headman's grip. The more he struggled, the more his face seemed to shift and deform right before her eyes. "He didn't say anything about a youkai slayer!" the impostor monk wailed.

Sango realized immediately what this must mean, and so the ensuing transformation did not startle her nearly so much as it did the headman and his daughter. The girl shrieked and dropped the bottle she had been holding as the monk turned suddenly into a tanuki. The headman gave a surprised shout and relaxed his grip enough for the creature to slip away.

Sango's thoughts raced even as she reached into the sleeve of her kosode and withdrew the long, coiled length of chain that she kept there even when she wasn't expecting trouble. Had the monk been a tanuki all along? No—she, or someone at the village, would have noticed. It only made sense if this was an accomplice, sent to lay a false trail while the real Miroku made a clean getaway. That would explain why he'd taken on Miroku's appearance, and why he'd failed to recognize her and hadn't known just who was hunting him.

No doubt the monk had left out the part of his tale where he stole the Shikon no Tama from a village of youkai slayers. She almost felt sorry for this hapless creature.

Even so, her aim was true: the chain tangled neatly around the tanuki's legs and a well-timed yank saw him flat on his belly on the ground. He whimpered, covering his head with his forepaws.

"Please don't kill me!" he cried as she approached.

"I'm not going to kill you," she told him, "as long as you cooperate." She knelt beside him. "This won't be pleasant. It shouldn't kill you, but I need to be sure you won't try to escape while I'm busy." While she was speaking, she had taken off the pack tied over her shoulders and removed her gas mask and several scent beads. Applying pressure burst the beads and released the soporific gas within. Sango's mask filtered the air to keep her safe, but the tanuki had no such protection. In a short time he lost consciousness.

With the mask still covering her mouth and nose, lest a stray breeze blow any of the lingering smoke back in her direction, Sango made short work of tying up the tanuki. When he was fully trussed, she turned back to the headman and his daughter. The headman looked grim, his daughter shaken.

"Now," Sango said. "Let's see about your problem." She was tired and frustrated, and wanted nothing more than to take the tanuki and be on her way, but something was not right here. Years of experience had taught her to identify the eerie sensation that indicated the presence of harmful youkai. It was this feeling she had noticed when she first approached the house. She was certain there was another youkai here even before the headman confirmed it.

She let him explain what had been going on—strange sounds in the home, persistent bad luck, and his daughter's mysterious and lingering fatigue, which no healer had been able to resolve. It was this last part that worried Sango the most.

"Please show me around," she told the headman. To his daughter, she added, "Stay here and keep watch over the tanuki. If he does anything or seems to be waking up, shout."

Wide-eyed, the girl nodded her understanding.

It was fully dark by the time they finished assessing the exterior of the building. Nothing seemed amiss, though the strange aura lingered. Leaving her bulky hiraikotsu with her sandals outside, Sango followed the headman through the open door and into the house. Even with a cheery fire in the main room's hearth, it was surprisingly gloomy inside. Shadows seemed to lurk in the corners and along the ceiling like cobwebs. Some of that, she knew, was from the darkness outside. But some of it…

"Do you mind waiting here?" she asked, eying the doorway at the opposite end of the room. If she wasn't mistaken, the evil aura originated beyond that door.

"Go ahead."

She went through the door, sliding it most of the way shut behind her, and found herself in a very dark room. She waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, then slipped away from the door, edging slowly along the wall. She reached a corner, crouched down, and waited.

After what seemed like ages, she saw it: movement, snuffling along low to the ground. Small and hairy, it might have been a dog. Sango knew better. She'd only heard of creatures like this before: masses of dust and dirt and hair that grew large enough to gain a life of their own. Even among the taiji-ya they were mostly laughed off as myths, and as scapegoats for poor hygiene. True examples of this sort of youkai were so unheard of that at first she wasn't quite sure what to do about it.

In the end she opted for the direct approach. She waited until it had snuffled its way close enough, then struck quickly with her sword. She would have preferred to bash it with the hiraikotsu, in the hope of obtaining an intact specimen to take home with her, but would have to make do with this. And as it turned out, the sword worked just fine.

The blade sheared through the creature almost as if it weren't there, leaving two lumpy halves on the floor at her feet.

"Come quickly!" she called. "And bring a light!"

The headman stumbled over himself to obey, rushing in with a lit oil lamp in one hand. It didn't help much, but its light was enough to confirm her suspicions.

"Here's your youkai," she said, indicating the two piles of dust and matted hair. "Or what's left of it."

The man's expression was one of disgust. Seeing the condition of the room, which was evidently not the storage room she'd thought, but someone's bedroom, Sango shared the sentiment.

"What is it?" the man sputtered.

"Let's go back outside, so your daughter can hear, too," she suggested.

They gathered not on the veranda, but in the main room of the house where the hearth could provide some extra light. Sango explained what she had seen, and to her surprise her host's daughter exclaimed, "I told you, Father! I told you something was sneaking around in the dark, and all you would say was we don't have rats in this house!" Realizing that she had just embarrassed her father in front of a stranger, she clapped her hands over her mouth and stared at the floor.

"Since your wife died, who has been taking care of the house?" Sango asked gently. From the shambles around her, it was easy to guess. The building might look whole and healthy from the outside, but on the inside it was falling apart.

Her host would not look at her. She went on, "You must bring light and fresh air back into the house. You must clean out all the dust and dirt, and keep it that way, or another youkai like this one will soon appear. If you can, obtain some incense and burn it regularly to purify the air. That will help."

She paused, then decided to continue. "I've killed this one, but if you continue to live in grief like this, another will come—or worse—and your troubles will return." She took a breath, let it go. Quietly: "Your wife would not have wanted this for you."

Afterward they offered to let her stay in their home for the night, but the urgency of her own mission compelled her to turn them down. When she would not accept their hospitality they offered her money as payment, but she turned that down, too. After all, there was still the issue of the tanuki. She couldn't take the chance that he might escape while she slept. So she said her farewells, gathered her things, and went out into the night to face her captive.

It might have been hours yet before he roused on his own. Luckily Sango carried smelling salts that were a quick antidote to the knockout gas she'd used earlier. The powerful scent had the tanuki wide awake and whining unhappily in a matter of moments.

"Whining isn't going to help," she told him. "I won't hurt you if you answer my questions."

"Yes, my lady!" the hapless creature stammered.

"How did you come to take the form of that particular monk?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Sango prodded his fat belly with her hiraikotsu. "The resemblance was too close to be random. Try again."

"He grew up near the place I used to live," the tanuki offered. "I used to watch him often, so his appearance is familiar to me. It's easier to use that form than try to make one up."

She prodded him again, harder. He struggled against the chains, but couldn't free so much as a paw.

"You expect me to believe it's a coincidence that I followed that same monk's trail from my village, and instead of him I caught you?"

The tanuki yelped even though she hadn't made a move toward him. He squeezed his eyes shut and flattened his ears against his skull as if he expected to be struck.

"You're helping him get away, aren't you?" she probed. Recalling the tanuki's reaction when she introduced herself as a slayer of youkai, she added, "But he didn't tell you who was after him or why, did he? He left you to die so he could get away."

The tanuki went limp and let out a quiet whine. "It's true."

"Tell me where he is."

Another whine. "I can't! I don't know where he is!"

Sango knelt so she could look him in the eye. "Maybe not," she agreed, "but you know where he's going, don't you?"

 

The tiny mountain trail gradually grew into a path as it wound through the foothills, and finally became a true road as it left mountain and foothills behind for good. Kikyou made good time as she followed trail and path and road. Unceasing, unrelenting. It was easy when she did not need to pretend to be human and could simply keep walking through the night.

There might of course be bandits and worse things abroad in the night, but Kikyou did not fear such specters. After the damage she had unwittingly wrought in the mountain village, after the death and suffering she had unleashed, she had very little to fear.

For days and nights she kept walking, letting her feet carry her where they would. If she stopped, if she tried to settle down someplace, even just for a few days, she knew it would only create more tragedy… and those wounds were still too fresh. The memory of Sayo's mother, clutching her child's lifeless body came to her every time she closed her eyes. Sayo, who had reminded her so much of her own sister, who had helped her calm the anger in her heart.

In the cruelest twist of fate, Kikyou no longer felt as if her anger would swallow her whole. All she could seem to feel was sorrow.

She set aside her sorrow when she came within sight of the place she realized she had been going all along: the village of her birth. She felt the anger begin to creep back in, wondering how she had come to wake up in Urasue's kiln, when her ashes should have been interred here, as she had wished. She had told them to burn her body, and the Shikon no Tama with it. And yet Urasue had revived her to find the jewel.

Had Kaede and the others not done as she asked? Had they kept the jewel for themselves only to lose it?

There was only one way to find out.

The village had changed significantly since her death. Only a few of the buildings were as she remembered them, and several were entirely new. How long, she wondered, had it been since she died? For the first time it occurred to her to wonder if so much time had passed that there was no one left that might remember her.

The villagers gathered to meet her as she came into town. She had grown up here. She knew this place and its forest and river better than any other. And yet among the people gathered here she did not see a single familiar face.

She should turn and leave before she could cause trouble for these people. She knew this, but her feet were rooted to the ground. She stared back at the strangers and knew she should never have come to this place. What had she possibly hoped to find here?

A young girl led a wizened old woman dressed in the garb of a priestess to the front of the crowd. Her hair was white, but meticulously pulled back, and she carried a bow over one shoulder. One eye was covered by a patch, and might have been missing. Her ancient, wrinkled face furrowed into a frown as she beheld Kikyou. "So," she said, "it is as I was told. I did not want to believe, but I cannot deny what I see with my own eye. Welcome home, sister."

Horror roiled within Kikyou as this stranger called her sister. "Kaede?"

 

The slayer was wary as he entered the isolated forest glen. Naraku pretended not to notice. His chosen appearance often had that effect on people.

"The message said you were in need of my services," the man said. He remained standing, looking down to where Naraku sat. Looking at him, he seemed utterly ordinary, not at all what Naraku had expected. But the wasp had led him here, and it would not have led him astray. Ordinary and unthreatening as he looked, this man had slain a youkai recently.

"That depends on what those services are," Naraku countered. "An evil aura has fallen over the castle of my lord, bringing illness and ill luck with it. No one has been able to dispel it. We have been forced to conclude that a youkai is to blame."

"Is that so?" the man mused, with the air of one who has heard it all before. And considering his profession, he probably had.

"My lord is among those who have fallen ill, and the medicine he receives only makes him grow weaker. Now his son has taken ill as well," Naraku explained smoothly, allowing the proper amount of emotion to color his voice. "I have heard whispers of an enormous spider seen inside the castle. I fear the tsuchigumo is to blame."

The man took in the information Naraku had shared. He did not seem fully convinced. "Such spiders prefer quiet places, away from people," he said as if speaking to himself or thinking aloud. "It is strange that one might take up residence in a castle, where it might be easily discovered."

This was not going as planned. The most irksome part was that the spider was real, an ancient beast he had coaxed out of the forest to keep the castle's denizens busy and distracted while he insinuated himself among the companions of the lord's son.

"Please," Naraku said, "I fear if nothing is done we will lose both my lord and his son."

The slayer regarded him for a long time in silence, as if he wished he could see past the mask to the face beneath. Naraku let him wonder.

Finally: "I will take your request to the leader of the slayers. I can make no other promises, but know that he will at least hear your plea." He'd gone from all caution to all business, a good sign. "I will need to know the location of your lord's castle, and what payment a slayer can expect to receive, should an extermination be in order."

"Of course," Naraku agreed, and told the slayer everything he needed to know. After swearing again to carry the message, the man departed.

Naraku watched him go and wondered what tales he would take home, what he would say about the eerie, masked man dressed in a baboon's pelt who had pleaded for aid. His lips formed the semblance of a smile beneath the mask.

Presently, he heard the sound of an insect buzzing, and the wasp that had led him to this meeting emerged on a nearby branch.

"Follow him," Naraku said.

The wasp took flight and disappeared above the trees.

 

It took three whole days for the tight feeling in Miroku's chest to begin to loosen. He trusted Hachi to lay a convincing false trail, but he still worried that Sango's skill might best even Hachi's abilities. And then what?

With luck, by that point the real trail would have run cold. He'd hide out at Mushin's temple for a bit while he figured out what to do next, and he'd keep a sharp eye out for anyone that might be a slayer for the rest of his life. This plan obviously needed work, if this was the best outcome he could realistically envision.

Thinking while he walked would at least have helped pass the time and would have kept him from looking over his shoulder too often. Unfortunately, it would also have been a powerful distraction. He couldn't afford to lose sight of the stakes just yet. He had only a small part of the Shikon jewel, after all, and he hadn't gotten away with it yet. Sango and her fellow slayers might still be after him, and a single piece of the jewel would not be enough to put an end to his curse. For that, he would need the entire Shikon no Tama. And in order to get his hands on the rest of it, he'd have to avoid being captured.

Keeping an eye out for stray slayers and their allies meant that he was keenly aware of what was going on around him. As he walked, the sound of songbirds was gradually replaced by the coarse cries of carrion birds. There were several times he even thought he caught the scent of blood, and of rotting flesh and burning wood. He slowed, wondering what he was walking into. Perhaps a battle had occurred not far from this place.

It was risky to continue, but he did not want to turn back and waste time finding another route. He began to question his choice a few minutes later when he came across a grisly scene just off the road. The stench of blood and gore was strong enough to merit a closer look. That closer look confirmed his suspicions: the crumpled heap at the base of the tree, or what was left of it, had once been a person.

He knew he should keep moving, not least of all because whatever or whoever had done this could come back at any time. But he couldn't shake the sense that something was terribly wrong, or the feeling that he ought to do what he could for this poor soul. He certainly didn't have time to dig a proper grave, but the ground here was very rocky. He could probably build a cairn, at least, so the remains would be somewhat safe from the defilement of animals.

He was still pondering his options when a trio of men armed with farming implements appeared on the road and headed toward him. He watched them draw near and take in the scene, though he couldn't tell what they thought about it. They almost looked more resigned than horrified. For several minutes, they conversed quietly with each other, though Miroku was too far away to hear what was said.

"You'd better come with us," one of them called at last. One of his companions was looking skyward, as if to judge the hour, while the other stared nervously toward the treeline and the distant mountains.

Miroku made his way toward them, letting them see his clothes and the staff he carried. "I was hoping to be of some assistance," he told them, fully aware that they might be behind the crime themselves, "but it appears I arrived too late. Did you know him?"

"You'd better come with us," the man who had spoken before reiterated. A wolf cried somewhere off in the distance. "It's not safe to be alone out here."

Fear had nearly overcome these men, Miroku realized. He might not know what had happened here, but they did. Whatever it was, he had a feeling they were rightly frightened of it. And that wolf's cry in broad daylight had not been reassuring. So Miroku acquiesced and followed the men back down the road toward their village, though he would have preferred to do more for the dead man than just to say a few prayers. But he wasn't going to take chances just now, not when he was surrounded by jumpy, frightened men.

They heard the sound of wolves most of the way to the village, though Miroku did not glimpse even a single wolf. All along the road were untended fields, with the occasional felled tree and, once, the charred remains of what had been a house.

They were within sight of the village when they found it: a fresh kill. A pair of wolves was feasting on something in the middle of an abandoned field. They looked up as the humans approached, and fled across the field and into the trees without a sound. Miroku's companions waited on the road, obviously uncomfortable, while Miroku went to investigate. He wasn't much happier than the others, but he had to confirm his fears. Just like the corpse he'd encountered earlier, this one had once been human, a young girl.

There was nothing he could do for her, knowing that even if he buried her the wolves would simply dig her back up, so he said a prayer for her soul and returned to his companions. "Are the wolves in this area always so bold?" he asked.

"We shouldn't talk about this here," the men told him.

Miroku kept his mouth shut until they finally reached the village. The whole place seemed to exist under an unnatural pall. He could feel it—and realized he had been feeling it— long before the cluster of ramshackle buildings came into view. It looked as if this village had once been prosperous, even pleasant, but it was clearly in decline now. Every bit as miserable as the countryside around it, the buildings were worn, some tumbling down, and the few villagers were gaunt and kept their eyes cast down except when the distant sound of wolves could be heard. They looked up at each howl and snarl and growl, and he saw fear in their eyes.

Something deeply unpleasant was happening here, and he'd walked right into the middle of it. He knew he should just keep going and leave these people to their mess. It had nothing to do with him and was likely just to make trouble for him. He thought of the piece of the Shikon jewel concealed within his robes, and of the slayers who might still be following his trail, and knew he needed to keep moving. He could not afford to stop here even to try to lift some of the misery.

But even he couldn't stoop that low. He let his companions take him to the village elders; the least he could do was find out what was going on, although it seemed obvious.

The elders were, to a man, elated to be presented with a Buddhist monk, all but confirming his suspicions.

"I cannot linger here for long," he cautioned them after introductions had been made. "I have urgent business elsewhere, but I will do what I can for your village. Tell me about the wolves."

"They came down from the mountains a few months ago, in the spring," the eldest of the elders said. "It used to be that travelers would sometimes run into sending-off wolves in the mountains, but now they haunt the roads and forests around our village." It almost seemed that he could not continue, but he recovered himself after a few moments of choked silence. "Recently they have begun to follow travelers even on the main road. They attack men on their way home after a day's work in the fields. Women and children see them prowling around even in daylight. These last six nights, they've been bold enough to attack the village."

"There are more of them every night," another man chimed in. "In a few more days, we might not be able to fight them off."

"We sent away everyone that had family in other villages that could take them in," the first man added.

Miroku could guess what was not being said. These men anticipated a bloodbath, and he was their last, unexpected hope for survival. He couldn't just leave them to such a fate.

"If the wolves come at night, we have no time to lose," he told them. The sun was already dropping low in the sky, and there was an entire village to be fortified. Time was against them. Thinking quickly, he asked, "What's the biggest building that's still standing?"

If they could squeeze everyone into one or two buildings, he might be able to protect them for the night. If he had to protect the entire village, with so little time to prepare, they would be lost. They might be lost anyway, if there were enough wolves and they were truly determined.

After a quick tour he selected two likely-looking buildings, the village's lone inn and an adjacent storage building, and sent the elders to gather the remaining villagers. While they were thus occupied, Miroku steeled himself and went to work. The judicious application of holy sutra scrolls around the perimeter of each building should help repel the wolves. And more scrolls attached around each door and window should prevent them from entering.

Using two buildings was a gamble, he knew. If it came down to it, he could use his spiritual power to project a barrier and protect one of the buildings. If that happened, the other would be at the wolves' mercy. Unless…

He hated the thought of using the kazaana, that the situation might become that dire. The very idea sent an uncomfortable chill coursing through him.

A woman cried aloud from where she was being escorted to the inn. Miroku finished applying a last scroll to the doorway before looking to see what the fuss was about.

Something was coming toward the village from the air. Something large, moving fast. It seemed to double in size even in the few minutes Miroku watched. As it drew closer, he began to recognize the shape: longer than it was tall or wide, and vaguely gourd-shaped. He had seldom seen his friend take such a form, but it could only be Hachi.

"Get everyone inside the inn," Miroku ordered, "and finish getting the livestock and valuables into the storage building." In other circumstances, this situation would have seemed ripe for exploitation, but he couldn't stomach doing such a thing to these people. If he survived here, there would be other villages to swindle.

He stood alone outside the inn, listening to the sound of wolves and watching the sky turn crimson as Hachi descended. The tanuki came down fast and hit the ground hard, made careless by abject terror. And it was easy to see why, for Sango had made the journey with him.

Dressed in her black leather armor, her weapons at the ready and her eyes flashing fire, she looked ready to kill Miroku on the spot.

"Sango-sama!" he began, trying not to sound as desperate and afraid as he felt watching her stride furiously toward him. Instead he tried to sound relieved, hoping to somehow salvage the situation. "Thank goodness!" He forced himself to walk toward her. "We could use your help."

Sango halted just in front of him, just beyond the striking range of his staff. "What game are you playing at now, monk?" she demanded.

He shook his head. "No game. These people need help."

"If you're here, of course they do."

"It's not that," he insisted. A wolf's howl from quite close by saved him from having to say anything else. Just behind Sango, Hachi, now reverted to his normal form, cowered in fear.

At the sound of the howl, Sango's expression changed. "Mountain wolves?" she asked.

"They came down from the mountains in the spring," he explained. "They've been ravaging this village ever since."

Surprise and confusion shifted into cold anger. "And you've convinced them you can keep them safe."

"I have to try," he protested. She strode right past him and up to the inn door, where a cluster of villagers watched. To her back, he went on, "Whatever you may think of me, I cannot leave innocent people to be devoured by wolves and do nothing to help."

It was too late. "That monk is a fraud," Sango announced. "A con man and a thief. Did he tell you he would save you from the wolves? He's probably planning to steal from you as soon as you're all in hiding."

That he would have done exactly as she said had this village been a happier, wealthier place only made him more indignant.

"Hand him over to me and I will help you," Sango continued.

Miroku inched closer to Hachi. He was dying to know how Sango had secured the tanuki's help, and furious that his friend had brought her right to him, but there would be time for all of that later. So instead he murmured, "Get us out of here."

With the wolves about to attack, Sango would be too busy to stop them. This might be their only chance to escape.

"Don't even think about it, monk," Sango said without turning around. Just how keen was that woman's hearing? "My hiraikotsu will knock you right out of the sky."

The villagers clearly did not know what to think or whom to trust. Wolves howled, sounding even closer than before, first one and then more and more until a full chorus of them set the air to echoing with their eerie cries. Miroku wondered what they might be communicating with each other and decided he would rather not know.

"Sango-sama, we can discuss our differences when this is all over, but right now I think we would be better served by working together."

She finally turned, tossing a length of chain to snare him. He stared at it, stupefied. Her armor was very form fitting, leaving little to the imagination. Where had she possibly hidden so much chain?

To Hachi, she said, "You have done all I asked. You may go."

Miroku could only watch, impotent fury kindling all over again, as the tanuki transformed once more and floated off into the night. He didn't even have the decency to look back.

Meanwhile, Sango secured the chain around Miroku, looping it around his arms and torso until he was well and truly at her mercy. He did not resist, for all the good it did him, even when she shoved him toward the inn's entrance.

"Keep an eye on him," Sango told the villagers, "and leave the wolves to me."


	8. Chapter 8

It wasn't easy to push his way through the crowd of villagers with his hands tied, but Miroku had to see what was going on. Several men muttered angrily as he squeezed his way between them. Eventually he emerged at the front of the group; he wondered if they had allowed him to pass just to put him between them and the wolves, and if that should bother him.

In the end, the why of it didn't matter. This was where he should have been, anyway. He'd offered to help these people. He would have preferred to do it without his hands tied, but at least he had the best view as Sango took her stand against the wolves.

She hadn't moved off very far, probably intending to use the building to keep anything from sneaking up behind her. She crouched, the hiraikotsu gripped in one hand, hanging down behind her. From his vantage point, Miroku could almost see the tension in her as she waited, the lone target for the wolves' wrath. No wolves were visible yet, but their calls still reverberated through the empty village. Sango was right to be tense. It wouldn't be long now.

He saw the wolves an instant after Sango did: a pair of them, moving in from the left. And those were only the first. In only a few minutes, Miroku counted almost twenty wolves, all converging on the spot where Sango waited.

Twenty wolves, and only one slayer. Sango was good at what she did. He knew that, he'd seen it firsthand. But against so many, he did not like her odds of success.

He strained against the chain that bound him, knowing it would do no good. Twenty wolves were nothing to the power of the kazaana. He could end this in minutes, if anyone would let him. Instead, he was forced watch as the wolves began their attack.

He'd expected Sango to throw her weapon before the wolves could get close, using its range to keep them at bay, but instead she let them close in. This forced them to crowd together, allowing her to smash two and even three of them with a single blow from the hiraikotsu until they took the hint and fell back to a safe distance.

The strategy was working--for now--but Miroku wondered how long she could keep it up. Sango was strong and capable, but these were no ordinary wolves. She'd fended off the wolves' first assault, but she also hadn't managed to kill any of them. A few of their number were visibly limping as they continued to circle their prey, but that was the extent of the damage.

A pair of older wolves slipped between Sango and the inn as she contended with the mass of younger wolves. They came so close to Miroku that he could have counted their ribs if he wanted to, or struck them if he'd had his hands free to use his staff, but they passed by as if they were totally unaware of his presence. At some imperceptible cue, they rushed forward together to harry Sango from the rear.

Sango whirled to block them with her hiraikotsu, the female wolf's claws sliding harmlessly off whatever it was made of. The male wolf swerved, darting around the enormous weapon and forcing Sango to dance out of the way of its snapping jaws or risk a crushed ankle. She found her footing and pivoted again, sweeping wolves aside with the sheer bulk of her weapon.

Miroku realized he'd grown breathless just watching her fight. Her pride might be insufferable, but Sango in battle was a sight to behold. All quick grace and surprising strength, she was truly impressive. Too bad it was only a matter of time before one of the wolves managed to get past her defenses.

He wanted to have faith in Sango. He wanted to believe she could win this fight, that she _would_ win this fight and they would all be safe. But there were so many wolves already, and a quick glance showed more of them arriving even as he watched. He knew that, slayer or no, no one woman could hope to defeat so many.

He knew of only one thing that could put an end to this without any loss of human life.

"She is vastly outnumbered," he pointed out. "Do you think one youkai taiji-ya will be enough to stop this?"

This provoked angry murmuring from the people clustered around him. Of course they did not want to believe him. It was easier not to. They all had simply accepted Sango's authority, and by extension her assessment of his character. Changing that would be an uphill battle. He only hoped it wouldn't take so long as to cost Sango her life.

He watched as Sango changed tactics and finally went on the offensive. She bashed her way through the first group of wolves by main force, bringing the hiraikotsu down on any that got too close, whipping the weapon around as if it were not huge and cumbersome at all. She was fighting hard, but the wolves still had the advantage. Their attacks were pushing her steadily away from the meager protection of the inn and out into the open where she would be more vulnerable.

Suddenly, at some signal that Miroku couldn't see, the wolves pulled back. Another group of wolves began to sweep in from the side. Letting the first group go, Sango hurled the hiraikotsu into the midst of the newcomers and charged in, drawing her sword as she ran. The hiraikotsu struck several of their number, bounced, and crashed to the earth a short distance away. Sango was upon the wolves before they could recover from the hiraikotsu's strike, skewering the first wolf she came to.

The moon crept ever higher in the sky as she began killing wolves in earnest. The moon cast a silver sheen over everything, muting all colors except the brilliant coral hue of Sango's armor and the red blood that coated her sword.

By the time Sango stood alone, ringed by dead wolves, Miroku had begun to wonder where the first group of wolves had disappeared to. He could hear their calls in the distance, but had no idea what the growls and howls might mean. Were they regrouping for another assault? Calling for reinforcements?

Sango sheathed her sword and retrieved the hiraikotsu before making her way back toward the inn. She was clearly winded, her face flushed and sheened with sweat.

"Sango-sama," he began.

She ignored him to lean the hiraikotsu against the side of the building so she could secure her mask over the bottom half of her face. He'd seen her wear that mask before, back when she fought the centipede, and wondered what it was for and why she'd left it hanging around her neck until now. He decided he could ask about that later, if they survived.

"Sango-sama, I know you don't trust me, but," he tried again. She fixed him with such a withering glare that he subsided.

If that was how she wanted to be, there wasn't much he could do about it. As a strict matter of fact, everything would be made easier if he stayed where he was and allowed Sango to die in her battle with the youkai. With her gone, no one would stop him from taking his piece of the jewel and disappearing. He shied away from that path. In a few more years, perhaps, he might be desperate enough for such callous disregard for human life. But for now...

He had no problem being self-serving, or cheating greedy rich men out of their ill gotten gains, but the thought of letting Sango die for his own convenience made Miroku's skin crawl. He could not allow that to happen. She was a nuisance, but she was also a human being. If Sango herself would not free him so he could come to her aid, he would have to convince the villagers to do it. Somehow.

Sango took up her hiraikotsu again, putting her back to the inn. She appeared to be watching something in the distance; it took Miroku a moment to realize that what he'd thought was a cloud was actually smoke rising from somewhere in the forest, and it was this that had attracted Sango's attention.

At first he thought it must be a building burning somewhere in the forest, then when the source of the smoke seemed to be moving he thought perhaps it was a blaze in the forest itself. But the longer he watched, the more obvious it became that both of these assumptions were wrong. The plume was clearly moving, and it was not growing the way a forest fire ought to. At the rate it was approaching, he supposed they would find out the cause soon enough.

It burst out of the trees long before he expected it to, moving so quickly that at first it was only a blur. It skidded to a sudden stop just beyond the range of Sango's hiraikotsu. Dust swirled, obscuring the creature for a long while, but Miroku already felt a sick feeling in his gut. The wolves had been bad enough, but this was something entirely, horribly different.

"Sango-sama," he began again, "If you try to fight that thing..."

She ignored him and walked straight toward it until she had passed out of the village and stood at the edge of the large open field that separated the village from the forest. The dust cleared, and he made out a vaguely human shape before the thing charged. One moment it stood far enough from Sango that she still would have struggled to hit it, and the next moment it had closed the distance between them. She had no hope of dodging the creature's strike or making a throw before it reached her; she managed to block with her weapon but the blow still sent her stumbling backward.

A chill shivered down Miroku's spine at the sight of such inhuman speed and strength. That, Miroku thought, feeling numb, was no ordinary youkai.

Sango recovered her footing and her bearings in time to bring her weapon around for another block. The youkai's claws clashed loudly against the hiraikotsu. Sango took a step back under the force of that blow. Just when Miroku was sure there was no way she could turn the battle around, a cloud of smoke erupted around her. He didn't see where she got the smoke bomb, but even from this distance he could smell the acrid stench.

The youkai snarled and drew back. Miroku imagined its eyes watering, mouth drooling from the onslaught of powerful scent, but he was too far away to be completely sure.

Sango pressed her advantage, whirling her hiraikotsu as if it were a much smaller, lighter weapon than it actually was. She landed several solid hits, though the smoke seemed far more effective.

Miroku was so focused on Sango that he didn't notice the wolves closing in until it was nearly too late. He thought to shout a warning, but the breeze wafted some of the smoke from the scent bomb toward the wolves. Whatever was in that smoke, it made the wolves recoil and draw back, rethinking the wisdom of their attack.

Even so, it was only a matter of time. The noxious smoke was already beginning to dissipate on the breeze.

By now the pack leader had recovered enough to fight back. Sango tried to use the hiraikotsu as a shield against the renewed onslaught, only to have it torn from her grip and tossed summarily aside. The youkai wasn't fooling around now and slashed powerfully at the slayer. Sango threw herself to the ground—Miroku couldn't see if the youkai's claws got her or not—and more smoke billowed up around her.

While the youkai doubled over, struggling to breathe, Sango scrambled back to her feet. Miroku willed her to run for the inn. She did not.

She ran for the hiraikotsu, seizing the weapon on the run. She whirled and threw without ever slowing down. He wondered how long she had trained to be able to pull off a feat like that. She couldn't possibly have had time to gauge the distance accurately, but the hiraikotsu hit its mark anyway,  bouncing off the furious youkai without apparent effect.

"I've seen that weapon of hers tear through a centipede with a single shot," Miroku found himself saying. For the first time the villagers seemed to notice that he'd joined them.

The angry murmurs began again almost immediately. "Nice try, monk," said someone behind him. "Like he thinks he can convince us to let him go."

"If we have to die here, so do you," said another, the man's voice dripping venom. It had been a long time since he heard such malice, not since…

No time for reminisces now. "That's what I've been trying to tell you," he protested. "No one has to die here. I can put a stop to this right now, but only if you let me."

This statement failed to have the desired effect. He pressed onward. "Those wolves aren't focusing on that slayer just because she's a threat. They have more than enough for that. So, tell me, why haven't they destroyed this inn? Why are we all still alive?"

Silence. He nearly had them now.

"I have a weapon that can stop this madness, but I can't use it unless you let me go!"

"Why should we believe anything you say?" asked the woman standing next to him. She was older, and had a matronly air about her. He wondered why she had stayed here in spite of the wolves. " _She_ says you're nothing but a fraud," she added with a nod toward Sango for emphasis.

"Sango-sama may not trust me—and rightfully so," he continued, though it pained him to have to admit it. "I stole something from her that I should not have. But I can't return it to her if you force me to stay here while that youkai kills her. You have to know that I'm telling the truth, that I can help, or else why are we all still alive?"

More angry muttering.

The woman beside him asked, "What did you steal from her, monk?" She spoke quietly, as if they were having a private conversation.

"A family heirloom. I thought I could use it to end the death-curse upon my family."

"And could you?"

Miroku bit back desperate, mirthless laughter. "Not like this."

The woman seemed to accept this. Moreover, she did not seem to care what agreement the others might be arriving at. After a few false starts she managed to undo the chain that bound Miroku and stepped aside, saying, "You had better not try anything funny, monk. My boy's a good shot, and he's got a few arrows left. If you try to run, I'll tell him to shoot you."

Miroku had absolutely no doubt this woman would keep her word, though he hadn't seen anyone among the people gathered inside the inn with a bow—or any weapon for that matter. Fortunately, he thought as he stepped across the threshold and into the open, he had no intention of running away just now.

In their haste to retreat into the shelter of the inn, the village men had left his staff where he dropped it earlier. He retrieved it now, then headed away from the inn, toward the place where Sango did battle with the leader of the wolves.

The circling wolves noticed him before Sango did. Three of them turned to slink toward him, no doubt hoping he would be easier prey. They were doomed to disappointment.

He only had a few sutra scrolls left, so he settled for using his staff to keep the wolves at bay, holding the scrolls in reserve. A few strikes from the staff had the wolves maintaining a safe distance. He knew better than to assume they would stay there, but pressed onward anyway. For an agonizing span, he watched Sango grapple with the pack leader, wondering how he was going to intercede without causing her death.

Seeing a chance as Sango—somehow—brained her opponent with the hiraikotsu and gained a momentary advantage, he shouted, "Sango-sama!"

She leaped backward and away from the youkai, eyes narrowing dangerously. "Why are _you_ here?"

"I came to help."

She didn't bother to respond. Her attention was focused on the youkai, which retaliated with lightning speed. It pressed the advantage of that speed, forcing Sango further and further backward as she struggled even to block its rapid-fire slashes. Seizing the opportunity that had just presented itself, Miroku circled, falling in behind the youkai.

Caught between the two of them, it chose to keep pressing Sango, leaving room for Miroku to close in from behind. He darted in, smashing the head of his staff into the creature's head. It howled its fury and turned, fixing him with icy blue eyes. "Do you want to die, monk?"

Miroku hadn't expected it to speak. Taken aback, Miroku faltered. Seen from this close, the youkai's face was far too human for his comfort, although the ears were oddly pointed and fangs were clearly visible in the snarling mouth.

Apparently heedless of the monk's proximity, or perhaps just willing to injure him if it meant taking down her opponent, Sango renewed her assault. She swung her weapon with all her might, missing Miroku by inches as the edge slammed into the youkai's ribs, denting the leather armor it wore. The youkai whirled again, slashing at Sango with enormous, wicked-looking claws.

They were holding their own so far, but Miroku knew it was no good. If they didn't find a way to incapacitate or kill the thing, it or its wolves would get them eventually.

Too late he realized that some of the wolves he'd chastened earlier were already closing in behind Sango while she struggled with their leader. A few more steps and she wouldn't have any more room to retreat.

"The wolves," he warned.

"I know," she snapped.

He'd practiced the move enough that the sutra scrolls had adhered to each of the wolves before Miroku realized they were in his hand, much less that he'd thrown them.

The pack leader turned again as the wolves cried out and began to paw at the scrolls. The scent of burning flesh filled the air. "My wolves!" it growled. "You bastards, I'll make you both pay for hurting them!"

Sango swung again before it had finished speaking, slamming the full weight of her weapon into the youkai's ribs again. It staggered away, the first indication Miroku had seen that her efforts were having any effect at all. Maybe it wasn't as impervious to her attacks as it had first seemed. Maybe it was just angry.

It wasn't much, but at least it meant things weren't completely hopeless. Still, there was a much easier way to end the fight, if Miroku could just get Sango to cooperate.

He knew it wouldn't work, but he tried anyway. "Sango-sama, get behind me!"

She did not so much as glance toward him. "Why?"

He had hoped it would be obvious. After all, if their enemy could speak, it could also understand what they said. "So I can use the kazaana and put an end to this," he told her, wincing as the hiraikotsu absorbed another crushing blow. Even using her weapon as a shield, it seemed impossible that she could continue to take such a beating for much longer.

How long did they have before her strength would give out at last? How long before her weapon and armor became too damaged to protect her?

"How do I know the kazaana is even real?" Sango demanded.

"Would I willingly put myself between you and _that_ if it weren't?"

It turned out not to matter. The wolf leader ducked past Sango's next, distracted attack and slipped through her defenses. Before Miroku could react, it had one hand around her throat and hoisted her into the air. The other hand pulled the hiraikotsu from her grip and tossed it toward Miroku.

He danced out of the way, watching helplessly as the youkai hurled Sango toward the distant trees.

He couldn't watch. Guilt was an unfamiliar feeling, hot and painful in his chest: _If she dies in this place, it's because I led her here._

He slapped two sutra scrolls to the hiraikotsu's blunt cutting edge and tried his hand at hefting the thing. It was huge, ungainly, and _heavy_. His best effort only sent it flopping to the ground a few paces away.

The youkai bared its teeth in what might have been a cruel grin and lunged toward him. Miroku stumbled backward, avoiding the rending claws by blind luck. He threw a last sutra scroll to buy some time, missing his intended target but still landing a hit on the creature's right arm as it slashed at him.

With no choice left, he prayed that Sango had survived that throw, and that she was safely out of range. He threw his staff aside and grabbed for the beads that circled his wrist and restrained the unstoppable power of the kazaana.

Even with the holy energy of the scroll charring its flesh and slowing it down, the youkai was too fast. There was no way Miroku could open the kazaana before it could reach him. And without his staff he could not even hope to protect himself from the claws.

At least he was going to die giving Sango a chance to live instead of screaming in helpless terror as his curse inevitably consumed him. It was a better death than his father's, or his grandfather's.

Before it could strike him down, the youkai's arm suddenly fell away, blood showering from the remaining stump. The creature's howl was loud enough to rattle Miroku's bones and was, apparently, a call to retreat. The wolves turned as one, including the powerful youkai that was their leader, and fled back into the forest as if they had never been there at all.

Belatedly, Miroku realized he had Sango to thank for his continued existence. It was her timely and unbelievably precise use of the hiraikotsu that had avoided hitting Miroku even as it severed the youkai's arm, striking exactly where the sutra scroll had weakened it.

Sango herself stood, apparently unharmed, so close beside him that he could have reached out and touched her. Her weapon, now spattered with the youkai's blood, hung loosely from her hand with most of its length resting on the ground. She was visibly trembling.

With the youkai's claws coming at him, he hadn't even noticed her.

"We won," he murmured, still not quite believing it.

Sango slid to her knees, letting go of her weapon so she could use both hands to pull the mask away from her face. "It's not over yet," she said, grimacing slightly. "They'll be back. And next time they won't just be hungry. They'll be angry."

Looking around, he could see that they had only accounted for a few of the wolves. Many of the wolves injured in the fight had not died, but had escaped alongside their fellows. Sango was right: it wasn't over. They had won this battle, but it would be only the first.

 

It took Sango a long time to recover herself, and for it to fully sink in that the tai-youkai had fled. She had not been at her best from the very beginning of the battle, and now exhaustion clawed at her more fiercely than any other time she could remember. But she had survived a fight with a tai-youkai!

She wasn't sure if that made her want to laugh or cry. During her years of training, the older and more experienced slayers had often warned of youkai just like this one. Youkai that were powerful enough to appear human or nearly human were very rare, but hey were also the most dangerous youkai a slayer might encounter. The village would have deployed a contingent of its best fighters to face this threat, and she had faced it alone and lived.

But she had not won a complete victory. The tai-youkai and its wolves were still out there, and sooner or later they were likely to return. When they did, they would not seek only food, but also revenge.

She would have to be ready when they came. If she could not convince the remaining villagers to flee, and she did not think she could, not if they'd been willing to stay this long, then she would have little choice but to stand and face the wolves again. It wasn't a prospect she relished.

There was no time to return to the village to seek reinforcements. Her supply of scent beads was dangerously low. She hated the thought of continuing to cooperate with the monk, but knew it might come to that. If his kazaana were real—and she was no longer sure it wasn't—it might turn out to be the only way to deal with the wolves without putting human lives at risk.

The monk just stood there while she tried to sort this all out, standing far closer than she would have allowed if she wasn't so tired. She wasn't sure she had the energy to tell him to step away from her, or to deal with his reaction, and at least this way she knew where he was and what he was doing.

Eventually, the village folk would realize that the wolves had fled for the night. She expected the monk would seize the opportunity to slip out of town as soon as she was distracted. And he would probably have help. She wasn't entirely sure what she wanted to do about that, and about the person—or people—who had freed him in the first place.

She was sorely tempted to obtain a room at the inn, sleep for the next day or three, and let them all do what they would in the meantime. That at least would be easier than thinking about what might have happened if the monk hadn't showed up to provide a crucial distraction.

Now that death was no longer imminent, her thoughts were coming to her as if through a fog. She shook her head as if that might help to clear it. It didn't. She'd pushed herself hard tonight, and it showed.

Slowly, she forced herself to focus.

The tai-youkai's arm lay on the ground where it had fallen, not far from the bloodied hiraikotsu, which would soon need tending. Her body protested the movement, but she climbed to her feet and went to inspect the spoils from the fight, such as they were.

The severed arm looked very much like the arm of a very strong human man, save for the wickedly long claws that tipped each finger. Looking at it made her feel almost uncomfortable. She knew her duty, no matter how uncomfortable she felt, and knelt to examine it more closely.

It was as she had expected: there was very little here that would be of any use to the other youkai taiji-ya back home. The claws, perhaps. The bones and flesh, and the leather band encircling the wrist, almost certainly not.

At first she thought the glint was merely a figment of her overtired imagination. A closer inspection revealed that the source of the faint gleam was a small, irregularly shaped bit of gemstone, which seemed to peek out from beneath the tai-youkai's leather wristband as if it wanted to be found. If it hadn't suddenly caught the moonlight in just the right way, she probably would have overlooked it.

She must have made some sort of sound that alerted the monk, because he immediately knelt beside her, saying, "Sango-sama, is everything—"

He cut himself short when she held up the stone. She knew with utter certainty that this was another piece of the Shikon no Tama. No doubt the monk recognized it, too.

He said something then, but she didn't hear. She was too busy reviewing the fight in her mind. Much of what had happened tonight made a great deal more sense now that she knew the tai-youkai had been augmenting its power with that of the jewel. Youkai were often stronger and faster than humans, but this had been far beyond anything in her experience. It was almost a relief to find out that, if not for the jewel, she would not have been quite so outmatched.

She ignored the monk as he spoke again, tucking the piece of the jewel into an empty compartment hidden in her armor where it would be safe. This accomplished, she rose and made her way back to the inn to tell the villagers what had happened and what must yet be done. To her surprise, the monk fell in behind her and followed her all the way back to the inn.

It wasn't until much later, when she was finally lying on a borrowed mat in the room she'd been granted at the inn, that she realized the monk wouldn't be going anywhere as long as she had a piece of the Shikon jewel. One less thing to worry about, for the time being, anyway. Moments later, sleep carried her into blissful oblivion.

 

Faceted eyes watched the slayer as he made camp for the night. If he was aware of the watcher hiding among the leaves, he gave no sign of it. He simply went about his tasks as if he were entirely alone. It was clear he would not reach the village of the slayers tonight.

Hitomi Kagewaki opened his eyes, the vision fading. The lamps had burned low while he slept, leaving his sickroom in darkness. Beyond the main door he could hear the sound of voices, probably the servants worrying over their young lord again. How he wished he could reveal the truth…

There came a rustling from outside the room's exterior door.  He preferred that door to be left open; the servants must have closed it while he slept.

Cursing the weakness of this body, he rose from his bed and crossed to the door. It slid open easily, without a sound.

No one awaited him on the other side. There was only an enormous wasp, hovering. Its black carapace shone faintly purple in the moonlight. Potent venom gleamed in droplets on a stinger as long as his hand. And in two of its forelimbs, it grasped something that glimmered.

Leaning against the door's frame for support, Kagewaki extended a hand. The wasp remained where it was, as if deciding what it ought to do. Then it darted forward and deposited the object it carried into his waiting hand.

Its mission completed, the wasp tilted its head several times until it seemed almost quizzical.

"You may go."

The wasp departed in a buzzing of wings, leaving behind no sign that it had been there at all, save for the pebble Kagewaki now held in his hand. In the moonlight it appeared more pink than purple, and shone as a pearl might. He inspected it for a moment longer, then closed the door and withdrew back into the darkness of his room.

By feel alone he made his way to the mat that concealed the compartment in the floor. He knelt, drawing the mat aside and removing the wooden box from its hiding place. He ignored the three wooden figures, each carefully wrapped with human hair, that the box contained. Instead, he scooped out a small pile of pebbles that had collected in one corner of the box. Each was small, smaller than the fingernail on his smallest finger, but they were all alike in their smoothness and coloration—and the faint glow they emitted. In fact, they were very much like the pebble the wasp had brought him tonight.

With tonight's addition, they numbered eight. It would seem he had amassed quite a collection in just a few days. Smiling slightly, Kagewaki added this eighth stone to the collection and replaced the box beneath the floor mat.

He had only just returned to his bed when he heard the sound of footsteps outside the exterior door. He supposed he ought to summon the servants, or the castle guards, but he remained where he was. After all, who would come here that meant him harm?

Presently, the door slid open and his puppet entered.

"You bring news, I hope," he asked. He spoke more loudly than was his wont, as if hoping to be overheard.

Naraku knelt just inside the door, limned in moonlight. "Of a sort, my lord."

"Tell me."

"My agents seek the Shikon jewel on your behalf."

He gave the appearance of mulling this over. "So you have not confirmed its existence."

"Not yet, my lord. But soon."

"Come back when you have more for me," he decided.

"One more thing, my lord: I've sent for a youkai taiji-ya."

Kagewaki smiled coldly. "You still believe there's a youkai in the castle?"

"Do you doubt it?"

"Go. Bring me that jewel."

Naraku rose, bowed deeply, and departed, leaving Kagewaki alone in the darkness.

While they conversed, a hush had stolen over the castle. Even the servants in the adjoining room had fallen silent, leaving the entire complex bathed in frozen moonlight.

For a long time, Kagewaki lay in his bed and watched the door, which Naraku had failed to close when he left. The moonlight silvered the porch outside and nearby vegetation, until all seemed calm and still.

Just before he closed his eyes to sleep, a shadow crossed the open doorway, enormous and many-legged. A trick of the light… or perhaps not.

Not too much later, a scream echoed through the silent castle.

 

The tea was warm and soothing, impeccably prepared, but for Kikyou it was no sustenance. She drank it anyway.

Kaede sat across from her, looking much calmer than Kikyou felt. The only sounds were an occasional crackle from the fire and Kaede's quiet sipping as she drank her own tea. Within the hut that was both entirely strange and too familiar, nothing else moved.

Kikyou set down her cup. "You are not surprised to see me, sister?"

Kaede's expression was grim. Her aged face was another stab at Kikyou's heart, at once achingly familiar and utterly foreign. "On the night of the last new moon, someone defiled your shrine. They stole ashes and soil from the place where you were buried," Kaede said quietly and with perfect calm.

Kikyou felt anything but calm. She seethed, fury rising unreasonably even though she knew the culprit was dead. The mountain witch Urasue had died at Kikyou's hand only a few days ago. _She is dead_ , Kikyou told herself. _She is dead. You killed her. You are avenged._ It didn't help.

Hate boiled inside her until she thought she would burst.

Kaede's hand, callused and gnarled with age, rested softly atop her own. The soft purity of her sister's power, so unlike the tempest of her own, seeped through her skin, its gentleness calming the storm within until it was bearable again. Kikyou shuddered.

"I worried that something like this might happen," Kaede was saying.

"There are few other reasons to steal ashes and graveyard soil," Kikyou commented. The words tasted bitter in her mouth.

"Indeed." That dry tone was as unfamiliar as the wrinkles that marred her face, or the missing eye. How strange was it for her to see her elder sister again, unchanged after all these years? Was it any stranger than Kikyou felt confronting her younger sister, now so altered by the ravages of time?

"I killed the mountain hag that revived me," Kikyou confessed.

"And then you came here. Why?"

Kikyou fell silent. She had not truly expected to find a welcome here. She was known to these people, even now. Some of them had been alive when she died, had been there when her body was burned and her ashes buried. There would be no escaping what she was, here.

At last: "I did not know where else to go." Indeed, she'd planned to die alongside Urasue.

The mere thought of that name sparked her rage all over again. She wanted to cling to Kaede, and did not. "Tell me, sister, what has happened since my death," she said, almost pleading. She might not find sanctuary here, but she could at least find information.

Kaede sat back, releasing her hand. "Not much, in this part of the world," she admitted. "With you and the Shikon no Tama and… InuYasha gone, things have been peaceful in our village, for the most part, anyway." She spoke the words slowly and deliberately, watching Kikyou's reaction to each one.

Without her sister's calming touch, Kikyou reeled. The memory of her final day, of _his_ betrayal, _his_ smirking face, _his_ claws in her gut, gushed forth and swiftly became overwhelming. She almost thought to see blood seeping from reopened wounds… but of course there was no blood. Even if her clay body could somehow bleed, it had never been so grievously injured as the flesh of her true body that day.

Her vision went red. She gripped her bow and reached for an arrow, ready to kill him all over again—

"Who do you intend to kill in my home, sister?" Kaede asked.

The red haze lifted. She did not know when she had grabbed it, or from where, but her old bow was in her hand. She needed only arrows.

"He is still where you left him that day fifty years ago," Kaede went on, unperturbed. She had known all along who Kikyou intended to kill. "You should  go see for yourself." She refilled her cup, took a sip. "Did you know they've started calling it InuYasha's forest?"

Of course she had not known. She did not know anything.

She did not know how long she stood there, shaking, helpless in the grip of a rage she could barely control. Kaede waited patiently while she recovered herself.

Finally, she found she could force words past clenched teeth. "And the Shikon jewel? Is that also where I left it?"

"No. We burned it with your body, as you asked."

"Then why was I revived?" There was no way Kaede could know the answer. The only person who could answer that question—who had already answered that question—was dead. But now that she had begun to speak, she could not stop. "Why now? What has changed?"

With each word, another layer of denial fell away. The vague unpleasant sensation resolved into a pull as insistent as fate. It had been there all along, of course, but she had shied away from confronting it. She had wanted so desperately not to believe that she had refused to accept what she knew, deep down, to be the truth.

The Shikon jewel had returned, however impossible it was. She closed her eyes and through the darkness she could see it shining like a series of distant beacons. Glowing dimly, tinged with impurity that would only continue to grow. Greed, lust, hatred, apathy… all the things she had always been denied. All the things she must still be denied.

The jewel was the true source of her hate. More than Urasue, more even than InuYasha. Even in life, the jewel had robbed her of happiness and of any chance to be the ordinary woman she had so longed to be. And now, because of it, she had been made into a monster.

"I will require arrows," she told Kaede.

Kaede, who had not been privy to her revelation, slowly rose on unsteady feet. "My sister, you have no enemies here."

"Not here," she said. "But the Shikon jewel is out there—somehow. I must do what I did not in life, and destroy it once and for all." She gripped her bow so hard she almost wondered if her clay fingers would crack under the strain. "There will be others who will stand in my way."

She expected resistance, but Kaede did as she asked and brought her a sheaf of arrows. As she handed the quiver over, she said, "I hope you find peace, Kikyou."

The hut was too small to contain her turmoil. If she stayed, it would surely suffocate her. Dizzy, the edges of her vision fading to black, Kikyou stumbled out into the night. In the open air, she felt she could finally breathe again—even though her body did not need to breathe any more than it needed to eat.

Kaede did not follow her. Perhaps that was for the best.

All around her, the village was quiet. Most everyone had already gone home for the night. They'd left their priestess alone to deal with the monster in their midst, just as they had always done.

She could not stay here any more than she could have stayed in the mountain hamlet where Sayo and her family had lived. She could not stay anywhere for long, not while the Shikon jewel still existed, for its fate was her fate. Only when it was destroyed would she be able to rest.

Closing her eyes once more, she sought the familiar aura. Somehow, the jewel had been broken into pieces and scattered across the land. She must begin by finding the pieces, just as Urasue had revived her to do.

Armed once more with her bow and arrows, she had all that she would require in order to begin. She could make good time yet tonight if she started walking now. And yet… as she crept away from the village, her gaze fell upon the forest as if it had called out to her. From here it was little more than a dark blur in the distance.

The wind rose, lifting her hair and seeming to tug her in that direction.

_InuYasha's forest…_


	9. Chapter 9

The forest was hushed around Kikyou as she walked the long-familiar path. She remembered the way as if it had been only yesterday, though she now knew nearly fifty years had passed since she last came this way.

The path had been well traveled back then, but it was clear that almost no one used it now. If she had not known the way so well, she might not have realized there was a trail at all beneath the thick overgrowth and the deep gloom of low-hanging branches. The nighttime shadows welcomed her like a lover's embrace, drawing her ever deeper into the forest. Leaf litter muffled the sound of her steps; frail strands of starlight slipped past the leaves overhead.

At last she came to the place she had sought: the clearing of the great tree, rising larger and older than any other tree in the forest. It towered over everything, its upper branches seeming almost to touch the moon high above, its silvered leaves rustling softly in the breeze. And there, tucked into the side of the tree, slept a man with an arrow through his heart.

Kikyou fell still. Her feet would not carry her forward.

He looked no different now than he had on the day he betrayed her and shattered her heart. On the day he killed her.

She had imprisoned him here as revenge, knowing she would die, and for fifty years he had remained.

She had expected to feel anger, but beneath the great tree her rage deserted her. At the sight of the once-beloved face, softened by sleep and framed by a glory of silver hair, a well of anguish and despair opened in her heart. She found that she could move, after all, and stumbled toward him. As she drew nearer to his resting place, she could not help but wonder: _what do I hope to accomplish here?_

She did not know.

Kikyou paused at the base of the tree to look up at him. She was so close now that she could have touched him, yet it felt as if an abyss separated them.

Her hand lifted of its own accord, fingers reaching up as if to grasp the arrow she could not hope to touch. If she were to climb up the vines that had grown around the bottom of the tree, forming a natural ladder that led straight to him, perhaps she could…

In her last moments she had bespelled him, thinking never to see him again, believing that if she died he need never wake again. Could she undo what she had wrought? Did she want to?

Was that why she had come here?

He looked so peaceful now. If she awakened him, she knew she would see her own hate and rage mirrored in his beautiful golden eyes. He would not care what might once have been, save that she had thwarted his desire for the Shikon jewel. In all likelihood, he would try to finish what he started all those years ago. Even without her spell to bind him, what was fifty years to one such as he?

_InuYasha_ _…_

If she climbed those vines, if she touched him once more, she might set him free. Instead she turned away.

_I'm sorry._

She could not free him, not while the Shikon no Tama still existed. And so she left him where he lay nestled against the great tree, and returned the way she had come.

The forest was still quiet around her as she made her way back to the main path. This path would lead her toward one of the places where, in the distance, she could sense the jewel's presence. It would take her away from this place, perhaps never to return.

Was it regret she felt at that thought, or simmering anger?

She had not gone far when she felt the malignant aura of a youkai. It was cleverly hidden along a tree branch just beside the road, but that powerful aura gave it away. Even from her position on the path, she could tell this was no ordinary insect. The sight of it troubled her. Even among youkai she had never seen its like.

Shaped like a heavily armored wasp, it was fully as long as her forearm, with an enormous stinger to match its alarming size. Its huge, multifaceted eyes watched her with a malevolent intelligence.

Kikyou reached for her bow, moving slowly to avoid startling the wasp. It buzzed a warning despite her efforts, its wings whirring to life, lifting it from the branch. Once airborne, it hovered, waiting.

In one smooth motion, Kikyou nocked an arrow, aimed, and fired. At such a small distance there was no chance she would miss.

Her arrow flared with light—white and crimson—and annihilated her target. Satisfied, she retrieved her arrow and continued on her way.

 

The strange creature watched the world through many-faceted eyes, taking in many moonlit views of grass stirring in a gentle breeze as it flew over the empty field. He found that he could watch through its eyes and even direct its vision in whichever direction he chose. A wishful trick of the imagination, or…?

Hitomi Kagewaki opened his eyes upon the same dull room in which he spent all his days and nights. He sat up. Had he really seen what he thought he saw? He allowed himself to relax slightly.

Real or not, these visions of his helped to pass the time. Hours that had been interminable now became bearable, when all he had to do to escape the boredom of his darkened sickroom was close his eyes and peer through the faceted eyes of a hellish wasp. He was tempted to spend all his time with his eyes closed, exploring this newly discovered skill.

He laid back down on his mat and closed his eyes. In his mind's eye, he saw through the eyes of another wasp. This one rested docilely on what looked like a tree branch. A nearby path extended in a straight line off into the distance. The deep green leaves and thin branches were nearly still. In fact, the only movement was a figure half-glimpsed as it approached along the path.

He was surprised, at first, to see a lone figure wandering around so late at night, though he knew by now it was nearly dawn. As it drew closer, he recognized the clothing of a Shinto priestess and felt his curiosity grow stronger. Where was this wasp hiding, that it could spy such a sight?

The priestess halted. He felt a horrible pang of recognition.

Unaware that she was being observed, the priestess adjusted her course, turning slowly and inexorably toward the wasp's hiding place. She must have sensed the creature's youki, to know it was there without seeing it. Yet that was not the part that troubled him. Through its faceted gaze, there could be no denying: he knew this woman. Knew, and _hated her_.

The wasp trembled, its wings buzzing angrily as it lifted off its branch. He trembled too, shaking with rage and disbelief.

She was dead.

She was dead.

_She was dead._

The dead woman lifted her bow, took aim, and fired a shining arrow directly toward the wasp.

Phantom pain exploded through his skull. He was sitting up and clutching his head when he opened his eyes again, though he had no memory of rising. And that wasn't the worst of it.

Something beat painfully in his chest, a throbbing agony that scalded hot as fire through his veins. Had this pain always been there, waiting to be unearthed?

Unbidden, one hand clawed at his chest. This pain, this _heart_ … he needed desperately to be rid of it, as he thought he had been rid of it before. Before he glimpsed the damnable woman again.

He had no idea how this could have come to pass. She was dead. That woman was dead. He knew she was dead. He had made sure of it, had made himself the instrument of her death, and it was that death that had enabled him to bury his disgusting human heart these fifty years. And yet he did not doubt the vision he had glimpsed through the wasp's faceted eyes, any more than he doubted the wasp in question had been utterly obliterated.

Somehow she had come back to haunt him, just as he began to put his plans into motion.

He seethed, feeling the room spin wildly around him. His hands clenched and unclenched as if to break a woman's neck, but the cursed woman was not here. He could not truly be sure where she was, for the wasp visions could only convey to him what the wasps saw, not where they were.

But she was out there, somewhere.

Would he never be free of her?

A footstep sounded just outside the door; he barely heard the soft sound of the door sliding open as the hapless servant, the impotent healer charged with caring for both Hitomi Kagewaki and his ailing father, entered the room. The man spoke softly, his voice placating as he explained the cause of his unwanted presence—the elder Hitomi had taken a turn for the worse and might not survive the coming day. Or something like that.

In that particular moment, the creature wearing Hitomi Kagewaki's skin could not have cared less about any of it. The schemes, the games, the illusions that he had spent so much time crafting had all crumbled away in the face of searing anger and hatred. He wanted nothing more than to inflict pain. To kill.

The healer knelt beside him, speaking words that could not penetrate the urge to kill. Concern blinded the healer to the danger until it was too late. Hands clamped over his throat, squeezing hard as his assailant rose to loom over him, forcing the life from the body until at last it had ceased struggling and lay still and dead on the mat beside the bed.

Hitomi Kagewaki stepped back and regarded the twisted corpse with indifference. He had not truly expected to be strong enough yet to kill a man with his own two hands. It seemed that fury had allowed him to tap into an unexpected well of strength.

If he had been thinking, he would not have killed the healer. Not yet. In his blind rage, he had created a mess that he would now have to clean up. There was no good way to explain this man's death, so the body must not remain. Better that the healer simply disappear than be discovered murdered in the sickroom of Lord Hitomi's son.

He sent out a thought, a summons, along the insubstantial thread that bound his puppet to him. _Come to me._

Far away, the puppet abandoned its mission to seek pieces of the Shikon no Tama, and hastened to return to its master.

He exhaled, resisting the urge to slump as something like irritation or exhaustion washed over him. Even if the puppet returned to dispose of the body before anyone else chanced to arrive and discover it, he would likely still be forced to take action long before he had planned.

He glowered at the corpse, though there was no life left in it to pay him any mind. If he'd killed it in a different manner, he could simply have attributed it to the predations of the tsuchigumo and called for the beast's destruction. But it was obvious the man had been strangled. Looking at the pattern of marks along the neck, he could almost see where each of his fingers had crushed into the other man's flesh and forced the life out.

If only he could do the same with the human heart that now beat so frantically within his chest. Years ago, he thought he had silenced that heart for good. Now he knew he had only been fooling himself.

He continued to stare at the dead man.

Mortal creatures like the one he had just killed were so fragile. Stop them from breathing and they died. Slice into their flesh and they could easily lose enough of their life's blood to die. Remove their hearts and they would die a quick death. And yet he, inhuman as he was, could not be rid of his heart.

He almost envied the dead man, so quiet and still.

The human heart of him still beat within the cage of his chest. Was death what peace looked like?

He knew from careful experimentation that he could physically remove the quiescent heart from his body and not die, as humans and other mortal creatures did. Curiosity sparking, he looked again at the dead man and wondered. What would happen if he found another vessel for this troublesome heart of his? Would the heart die if he released his grip on it, and kill him? Or could he place the burden on the shoulders of another and begin to distance himself from the heart's insidious influence?

He sucked in a breath, inordinately pleased with himself in spite of the problem of disposing of a dead body while maintaining his carefully-wrought disguise. In all his years of life, such an idea as this had not occurred to him, but even now he could see the vast array of possibilities that had opened before him. In comparison, the dead man was only a minor inconvenience.

Hitomi Kagewaki smiled as he returned to his sickbed.

 

Sango jolted awake the moment she realized she wasn't alone; alarm flashed through her dark eyes, followed swiftly by fury as she recognized the intruder. Miroku remained where he was and waited for Sango's anger to pass or for death to come.

Sango scowled at him from her bed. It looked like anger was there to stay. Miroku supposed it was warranted and decided not to take offense. After all, he had broken into her room uninvited.

He'd considered waking her earlier, but it had seemed more prudent to let her sleep while he took a look around. It hadn't taken long. Sango traveled light, and had hidden her piece of the Shikon no Tama where he couldn't find it easily, at least not without waking her.

"What do you want?" she demanded.

Miroku was glad he'd thought to sit outside of striking range, and not just because it was safer. It also came with a better view. If not for the furious look on her face, he would have liked to imprint the memory of Sango like this—all mussed from sleep, or other activities—on his mind. The fire in those eyes wasn't just a reflection of the lamp's glow. He almost wished they did not have to be at odds. Yet he could see no way they could be reconciled.

Sango was still waiting for an answer. Miroku said nothing, but held out his hand, the one without the curse, bridging half the distance between them. In his palm lay the piece of the Shikon jewel that he'd stolen from her. He hated the thought of giving up even part of the jewel that might finally rid him of the kazaana, but after last night he knew he couldn't keep it.

Sango's brow furrowed as uncertainty replaced anger.

"I didn't want you to think I intend to keep it," he told her.

She lifted herself on one elbow and reached over. Miroku dropped the stone into her outstretched hand, ignoring the fear that shivered through him at the loss.

"Why the change of heart?"

He considered how best to respond.

"That's what I thought," Sango muttered, tucking her hand back under the blanket. "Now, unless you'd like to explain what you were really doing in here…"

"There is still the matter of the wolves," he cut in. Too much was at stake. He couldn't let her dismiss him so easily.

Sango sat up with a sigh, tucking the blanket neatly around her lap. "The wolves," she prompted.

"You said it yourself—they'll be back. And when they return, they'll want to avenge their leader's loss," he explained, though it frustrated him to be made to state the obvious. "If we don't stop them, this entire village will be destroyed."

" _We_?"

He should have known she would make this difficult. "Yes. The two of us. The villagers here aren't equipped to deal with something like this."

"I had assumed you would run off at the first opportunity, along with whatever valuables you could get your hands on," she said, her voice lush with disdain. He supposed he deserved that one.

"In other circumstances, perhaps I might have done so," he admitted. It couldn't hurt anything but his pride to let her win this one, especially when her biting accusation was true. "But the lives of innocents are at stake. No matter what I would prefer to do, I can't simply run away and leave these people to die." He paused to gauge Sango's response. She didn't look happy, but at least she was listening. He kept going. "No one was going to be harmed if I took the jewel from your village, but its power might help me live. How could I not take it? But if I leave here, there is no uncertainty. People will die."

"And so you're determined to stay and help me," Sango murmured. She spoke slowly, as if judging the truth of his words with each syllable she uttered.

"Yes."

He knew that look: she didn't like it one bit, but couldn't think of an alternative. She might actually be coming around. It wasn't ideal, but it was a start.

"Can you fight?" she asked at last.

"If the need arises," he assured her. He'd held out some small hope that the events of last night would speak for themselves, but it seemed not.

Sango did not look particularly convinced. "Can you hunt? Track?" she asked. "If I weren't here, what would you do?"

"Even the worst hunter ought to be able to follow that many wolves," he countered. "And before you arrived, my plan was to conceal everyone for the night and convince them to leave in the morning. If I had to stay and fight…" He paused to consider. What would she be most receptive to hearing? He kept coming back to the same strategy, one he knew she wouldn't like. "Against so many I must seriously consider using the kazaana."

Miroku knew she thought him a liar and that she probably thought the kazaana was nothing more than a story he'd invented to garner sympathy. But to her credit, Sango did not scoff. He went on, "However, knowing that the pack leader had at least one piece of the Shikon no Tama—" Her eyes narrowed. Had she really not guessed that the wolves might have more than one piece? "—Clearly the kazaana would be too risky. I suppose I would consecrate more scrolls, take out as many wolves as I could that way, and focus on bringing down the leader. It would still be dangerous, but he's missing an arm and whatever power he may have been getting from that piece of the jewel. It might work."

"Well," Sango decided, "it's not good, but it's no worse than anything I've got. There's one major flaw, though: that tai-youkai would make short work of you by the time you got close enough to attack."

"So what do you have in mind?"

"Those scrolls of yours are good for controlling the wolves. You do that, and I'll take down the leader from afar with the hiraikotsu."

"If I remember right, you had a tough time of that last night. What's different now?"

She nodded once toward the hiraikotsu, where its huge bulk was propped against the wall. He'd noticed earlier that the sutra scrolls were still in place, but hadn't thought much of it at the time. "Those scrolls you attached to my weapon, and the fact that our enemy is now down one arm and the power of the Shikon no Tama," she pointed out. "Did you know we purify the youkai parts before we forge them into weapons and armor?"

"It was a lucky guess," he told her weakly, refusing to be baited by her argumentative tone. In truth, it hadn't occurred to him at all that his scrolls might destroy the weapon rather than augment it. "Under the circumstances, anything I could do to keep us alive seemed worth the risk."

This answer seemed, if not satisfactory, at least acceptable. "Still," she murmured, "why bother to help me in the first place? It would have been easier for you to just stand by and wait for the wolves to kill me."

What could he possibly say to that? He knew Sango held a low opinion of his character, but he had not expected this. That she would think him willing to sacrifice another person for his own ambitions—it occurred to him suddenly that he had done just that to Hachi, and not thought twice about it. He set the unpleasant realization aside to be dealt with later. "You need to ask?"

She speared him with a look. As if she knew what he'd been thinking, she said, "You never even told that tanuki that the person chasing you was a youkai taiji-ya."

This was a path he would rather not tread. "Hachi owed me a favor. He offered to help me out."

"And you conveniently left out the one detail that could make him reconsider," she noted. "How do I know you won't do the same thing to me?"

"Whatever you may think of me, I could not discard a human life so callously," he protested. "Not the lives of the people who live in this village, and certainly not yours."

Sango was frowning. Something about this conversation still displeased her, though he couldn't be sure what it was. He forged onward, trying a different tactic. "You now have two pieces of the Shikon no Tama," he pointed out. "If you die, it is likely that both of those pieces will fall into the hands of the wolves. I would have no hope of recovering them, and would probably be killed, myself."

"What, you wouldn't just use the kazaana, and then take the jewel pieces for yourself?"

"And risk losing a piece of the Shikon no Tama to the void? No."

"You mean, I should just take your word for it?"

"I can offer you no more than the truth," he said, pitching his voice the same way he did when he was trying to seduce a lord's daughter. "If you accept my help in hunting the wolves, I will not betray you."

She sighed, her gaze dropping to the hand that still held a piece of the Shikon jewel. "I will just have to accept that, won't I?"

"What more can I do to prove my intentions are pure?"

He watched with interest as she carefully smoothed the angry frown from her face, replacing it with calm indifference. "Fine. I will allow you to help me dispose of the wolves." He managed not to breathe a sigh of relief. Victory! "Now go make your preparations. We'll head out as soon as you're ready."

He nodded. "Of course."

As he rose and walked to the door, he could feel her eyes on him. He wasn't entirely sure he liked the sensation.

He slid the door open.

"And — monk."

He turned back. "Yes?"

"If you steal from me again, I won't just hunt you down to take back what's mine," Sango told him. She was still seated on the sleeping mat with the blanket gathered around her lap, her voice pitched low and steady. But instead of seeming appealing, she was inexplicably terrifying as she said, "I'll skin you alive."

 

Sango supposed things could be worse, though she wasn't sure how. This was the last thing she had expected this morning: to embark on her hunt with the monk in tow.

She had assumed he would be long gone, but instead he had returned what he had so recently stolen. She wasn't entirely sure what to think about that. And yet for lack of a better option, here she was. And here he was.

They walked in awkward silence as they left the village and its outlying fields behind and entered the forest. She almost would have preferred inane chatter from the monk, because that would at least give her something to be annoyed about other than the aches and stiffness last night's battle had left her with. Instead, the monk was all business. The flirt and the thief had vanished without a trace, leaving behind the outward appearance of an authentic monk.

The effect was disconcerting. It was no wonder the villagers had fallen for his act; if she had not known better, she could have believed it herself. Worse, it would have been easy to trust this somber and serious man, which she knew she must not do. She was not so naive as to believe the monk had truly changed his mind about the jewel—despite her threats, it was only a matter of time before he would make another attempt to steal the pieces she possessed.

She would have to find a way to keep him in line. At least she was fairly certain he would not allow her to be killed—or kill her himself—to get his hands on her pieces of the jewel. Too bad she couldn't be so sure he wouldn't try any other nonsense, or that he would prove to be anything but a distraction in battle.

She had been lost in her own thoughts, and watching for signs that they were on the right trail, for a long time before she realized the monk was speaking.

"I'm sorry?"

"The mask—it protects you from the smoke from your… bombs?"

She nodded. "It's an air filter, so I won't be overwhelmed by the smell."

"Are you planning to use more of those bombs, then?"

She thought she understood what he was getting at. "If I do, I'll make sure you're out of range first," she promised.

He didn't seem very reassured and she wasn't feeling very sympathetic. Silence fell over them again, and this time Sango was happier about it. The monk hadn't said anything outrageous or unreasonable, but she already wished he were anywhere else. Even if that meant she would have to face the wolves again alone.

It began to feel as if they had been walking for hours with no sign of their quarry, though at least the effort of walking warmed her and eased her aching muscles. She knew it must still be early in the day, but found herself frequently looking for the sun to gauge how much time had passed. On her own, Sango would have taken all this in stride. With the monk watching her every move, she just wanted it to be over.

She had no doubt that by now the wolves, with powerful noses and keen ears, knew they had entered the forest. So why hadn't they attacked yet? It was all beginning to feel too much like a trap for her liking.

With trees closed in on all sides, it would be much more difficult to use the hiraikotsu than it had been yesterday. The wolves had no reason to delay in defending their den, wherever it was. So what were they waiting for?

The wolf pack leader was a youkai powerful enough to take on human form. Even deprived of the power of the Shikon jewel that had been embedded in its arm, such a tai-youkai was a force to be reckoned with. Now that she had proved she could be a threat to it, there was no telling what it might do. Perhaps she had moved it to caution, or perhaps it was only trying to draw them into a trap—or lure them away to leave the village defenseless.

She disliked the uncertainty of it all, much as she disliked the thought that she might at some point be forced to rely on the monk for assistance. She strode ahead, hoping fervently that it wouldn't come to that. She'd been wrong about him before. She did not want to find out she'd made the same mistake twice, not when her life was at stake.

The monk followed dutifully behind as the trail led them deeper into the forest, his staff ringing a cheerful counterpoint to their steps, oblivious to Sango's growing displeasure.

It was perhaps another hour before they came across the wolf. It looked much like any ordinary wolf, though it was visibly emaciated, but it sat in the middle of the path and did not move, as if it were waiting for them. Not quite trusting the monk not to do something foolish or self-serving, Sango slowed her steps so they came up to the wolf together.

The wolf trembled slightly as they approached, quivering as if it yearned to bolt for cover or lunge for their throats. Sango listened carefully, but heard no sound that might hint at other wolves hiding in the brush.

"Bait?" the monk asked in a low voice, "Or…?"

The wolf stood up, walked a few paces down the path, then turned to watch them.

"A guide, I think," Sango murmured.

"Do we follow, then?"

"It seems easier than the alternative." She fixed her mask over her face and slipped the hiraikotsu over her shoulder so she could remove the carry strap. With her depleted supply of scent beads, the strap fit neatly inside the hidden compartment under her left shoulder pad.

The monk watched all this with undisguised interest. Sango glared at him, but his only response was to affect a look of total innocence. Shaking her head, she forged ahead to follow their guide.

They rounded a curve in the path, then the wolf led them along a tiny game trail that wound its way through the underbrush. It didn't look like much of a trail at first, but it soon widened, revealing tracks left by many paws. There was no doubt that at least some of the other wolves had come this way.

Sango tensed for an ambush and kept walking. Eventually the game trail widened to meander through a forest clearing. Through the opening in the canopy, Sango could see that the sun was nearing its zenith and they were now much closer to the mountains than she might have expected, as if they had been heading directly for those distant peaks.

Their guide paused at the far side of the clearing and sat facing them, its mouth open as it panted, tongue lolling to one side. The walk to the clearing had not been long or strenuous enough to provoke such a response. Was this a signal, perhaps?

Before long the tai-youkai who was leader of the wolf pack emerged from the underbrush, flanked by three wolves on each side. His right arm ended in a stump that had been wrapped with leather and fur, but he showed none of the paleness or weakness she would have expected in a human with such a grave injury. None of the wolves gave any outward sign of aggression as they entered the clearing and stopped a safe distance away from the two humans. Sango was willing to wait for them to make a move, but readied herself to throw the hiraikotsu anyway.

"Youkai taiji-ya," the tai-youkai began. His voice was deep and rough, like a growl turned to human speech. "Are you here to kill me and the rest of my wolves?"

"If there is another way to stop the killing, no." She thought she saw something like surprise flicker in the tai-youkai's icy blue eyes. "I am not here to slay wolves. I am here to protect the people of the village you have been destroying."

"You don't know a damn thing about what's going on here," the pack leader snarled, "but you walk right in and start killing like you know everything." A couple of the wolves lowered their heads and bared their teeth unhappily, though they did not attack. They seemed almost to be waiting for a signal from their leader.

"You're right," Sango agreed. "I don't know what's going on here. I only know that your wolves have been killing people ever since they came down from the mountains. It's easy to guess that you've been killing the people for food. But as for why you left your home, I have no idea."

More wolves growled, some rising to their feet and puffing up their fur, bristling with what might have been indignation or anger. Sango kept her eyes on the leader for now.

"Since we are ignorant, perhaps you would be willing to explain the circumstances that have brought you out of the mountains," the monk interjected in a placating tone.

The tai-youkai glanced in his direction, seeming to notice him for the first time. He snorted. "Why bother?" He held up the stump of his arm to demonstrate. "Humans are all the same. They think wolves need to be killed whenever they appear, no matter what."

Sango waited for the monk to respond. When he did not, she spoke up. "My people do not hold to such truths," she murmured, knowing the tai-youkai's keen hearing would catch her words across the distance between them even if she spoke with quiet sincerity. This was not at all the direction she had thought this confrontation would go. "We may be slayers of youkai, but we do not kill indiscriminately.  Youkai that are not harmful, we leave in peace. There are even youkai who live in my village, youkai who have allied themselves with my family and others for generations. We would be foolish to spurn their aid and their blessings."

"That can't be true," the tai-youkai retorted. "I've heard stories about the likes of you before, slayer. And every one of them ends with dead youkai."

"Who tells the stories, then?"

The tai-youkai recoiled as if she had struck him. Fury crashed down over his features and Sango knew she had gone too far.

"The ones that are smart enough to hide and escape notice," the tai-youkai spat. His arms trembled, and his remaining hand had clenched into an angry fist. Any moment now, he would be angry enough to attack.

"I cannot explain away your convictions," Sango began.

"I cannot speak for the rest of her people," the monk cut in, "but as for this one, she came here chasing me after I stole an heirloom from her family. I set a youkai friend of mine, a tanuki, in her path and told him to pretend to be me and send her on a false trail so I could get away. It didn't work—obviously—and yet she allowed my friend to live." He paused, as if to let that sink in. "For my part, I think if you tell her what happened and what troubles you and your wolves are facing, she will listen."

The tai-youkai fixed the monk with a look of disbelief that almost perfectly mirrored Sango's own. She knew the monk was sneaky and that he could think quickly, but somehow she had not expected such a speech from him. She had to remind herself that he was also a liar and a con man, and that he had just shared a story that was not his to tell; it was unlikely he meant even a bit of the respect and admiration his tone and words had conveyed. At least it appeared to have had the desired effect upon the tai-youkai.

"Does this man speak the truth?" he asked.

"I hate to admit it, since it came from him, but yes. Everything he said just now is true. If you will tell me what your circumstances are, I will listen. I won't fight you unless I have no other choice."

"The monk admitted to being a thief, yet you not only let him live, you are now working with him," the tai-youkai mused. Sango felt her face grow warm as she flushed with anger, though she had to admit that she had indeed agreed to work with the monk. The tai-youkai could hardly have failed to notice her reaction, but made no mention of it. "Either you're incredibly gullible or you can be trusted after all."

Sango bit back her anger at being so insulted. Anger would do no good now, not when she was so close to getting answers instead of violence from these wolves. "The monk stole my family heirloom thinking it could save him from a curse upon his family that will inevitably kill him," she said. "No matter how angry I was that he would so insult my family, I couldn't kill him for wanting to save his own life."

She took a step forward, noticing how the wolves were all immediately alert but did not leap to the attack, and kept walking until she had crossed half the distance to the wolves. Then, hoping the monk would be able to defend her if the wolves chose to attack, she sat down and indicated that the pack leader should join her. "Tell me what happened."

Almost grudgingly, the pack leader came to sit opposite her, still flanked by his many wolves. A few moments later, the monk joined them.

"My pack has lived in the mountains for thousands of years," the pack leader began. "We used to prey on any humans dumb enough to wander into our territory, and on the animals that lived there." His expression grew grim and he began to speak in a way that bared his teeth angrily. "Our ancient enemies were the birds of paradise, flying pieces of shit that lived even higher up in the mountains than we did."

"What are the birds of paradise?"

"They're like big-ass pigeons with teeth."

Sango nodded for the pack leader to continue while she began to mentally run through the list of youkai with which she was familiar, seeking one that might meet this description. She could think of none, and wondered if perhaps she would take the story of a new kind of youkai home with her when all was said and done.

"It was like that ever since I was a pup," the tai-youkai went on. "We'd fight the birds of paradise when they came down from their mountain peaks, and then they'd go back to doing whatever the hell they did up there and we'd carry on with our hunts until the next time. But the last time they came down from the peaks, something was different. Their leader was stronger than it had ever been before. They routed us. Killed most of the pack and forced the survivors out of our dens and into the cover of the forest, where the trees are too dense for the bastards to fly."

Finally, the situation was becoming clear. This wasn't a pack leader bent on the casual destruction of any human settlement he could find. This was a pack leader determined to save what was left of his pack, no matter what. This was a pack leader who was terrified that a monk and a youkai taiji-ya might team up to finish what his ancient enemies had begun.

"It was during that last fight that I realized why the leader had become so strong. It had attached some magic rocks to its wings and beak, so nothing could stop it," his voice had stopped sounding so much like a growl, instead becoming suffused with bitter weariness. "Since then my wolves have been hunting what they can, and I've been running as fast as I can all over the damn place, looking for more of those magic rocks. It took me almost a month to find even three. I thought maybe we'd finally have a chance to reclaim our home… and then you showed up and took one away, and half my arm, too."

Sango's heart pounded. _Three!_ That meant the wolf pack leader had two more pieces of the jewel and, if his story could be believed, the leader of the birds of paradise had more still. She fought to keep her voice steady. "If I can rid you of the birds of paradise, will you give me your remaining magic rocks and go back to your territory in the mountains, and trouble these people no more?"

The pack leader bared his teeth in earnest now. "Why should I give you anything? You'll probably just turn on me and mine when you're done with those damn harpies."

"My people expect payment when we are hired to kill a youkai," Sango told him calmly. "I will kill your enemy so you may return home, and in return I ask only for your magic rocks and those of the 'harpies'. I won't harm a client." Somehow she managed to keep the indignation out of her voice and avoid mentioning that she didn't entirely trust the monk to share her scruples.

"Without those rocks, the harpies will just force us out again," the tai-youkai pointed out. "What kind of deal is that, where we end up worse off than before?"

"They will defeat you even if I strip them of their rocks, as well?" She kept her voice level, almost sweet. She understood why he wanted to keep any pieces of the jewel he could, even if he seemed not to know what they really were, but knew she had to get him to hand over the pieces he had. If he didn't, she would have to find a way to take them by force, and she wanted to avoid that if at all possible.

The wolf's eyes narrowed. "You seem to care an awful lot about those rocks," he said slowly, going on the defensive.

"They are a part of the heirloom I spoke of before. This woman chased me here because I stole a similar magic stone from the village of the youkai taiji-ya," the monk interjected quickly. "The original stone was broken into pieces in recent the past, and the pieces scattered throughout the land. Naturally, now that she has found some of the pieces, she wants to take them back to their proper home."

The wolf pack leader wasn't quite as thick-headed as he had appeared at first. "That story sounds familiar, monk."

Sango wished the monk had kept his mouth shut instead of getting them into trouble. If the tai-youkai recognized the story as that of the Shikon no Tama, he might refuse to give up the pieces in his possession. They were so close to negotiating this without a fight, too. "I could tell you any number of stories and legends that are similar to this one," she said. She would have liked nothing better than to glare at the monk, but did not want to seem to be colluding with him on any sort of scheme.

"What makes you so sure these are part of your so-called heirloom?"

"The stone I retrieved from your severed arm was. I have no reason to doubt that the others will be, as well." She paused for effect. "This is the best offer you are going to get. Either I kill your enemy and you give me those stones, or we fight again here and now." She let him think about that. "Even if you survive me, the birds of paradise will kill your wolves bit by bit until there is only you, and then they will kill you, too."

The tai-youkai snorted. "You know what? Fine. It's no skin off my back if you die facing the birds of paradise. Go kill 'em, if you think you can."

"And when I do, you will pay me the fee I ask."

"Fine. If you live, I'll give you the damn rocks."

"And you will return to your mountains and leave these people alone."

Begrudgingly: "That too."

Behind her mask, Sango smiled. Things were finally looking up. "Then you have a deal."


End file.
